temps and color hydrangea's

here are some pics of hydrangeas i have in my yard they are a brilliant blue all summer but, as the temps get cooler the plants take on this beautiful purplish color. but i've noticed this same thing w/ some strains of weed!




anyone else grow these in their yards?

Interesting, I though hydrangea color was related to soil pH, not temperature.

yeah it is during the summer months the plants are blue in summer and usually light blue but last year we added ammonium sulfate to the ground and the increased ph made the plants an extremely brilliant blue which ihad never gotten before. but in the fall they start to turn a greenish as you can see in the pics inside is still green but as the cooler temps start coming at night i get this beautiful purplish color

maybe i just associate the purple color with the colder weather but it seems to go this way every year. i dont actually know i do most of my learning through observations

As any of us who pay attention to things around us do, fiend. I just saw something on PBS that was very pretty called an oak hydrangea. Green flowers, but absolutely brilliant foliage, really beautiful.

I'd like to see if I can grow hyacinth up here, its fragrance is gorgeous. My irises are FINALLY taking off, too! I spent some bucks on unusual varieties two years ago and thought they'd died. Then I realized, maybe I should water 'em, eh? So, this summer they were watered and the cat promptly laid on almost all of them, snapping the growth off at the base. I shall scold the cat if he does it again. Also, my mother (lives in SoCal and can grow ANYTHING, the woman's hands are green, not just her thumbs) gave me something she calls coral bells, and those are popping up everywhere I put them.

You see, I've never had my own home with lots of property. It's always been condos or townhomes, not much yard space with those. Now we have our own home and plenty of land to garden. But I don't know much at all about gardening, and up here isn't like SoCal where you can pretty much stick it in the ground and watch. So, my successes get me excited.

thats great you got your OWN home some times i take for granted that i have a home of my own. i live in new england and the weather here is crazy warm one day snow the next humid as hell all summer long. biggest thing i've learned about outdoor gardening is "like indoors" the soil and drainage is key. normaly my soil is rocky and depleated of nutrients but the places i plant new stuff in my yard i fill with compost that i make just like my indoor grows. it kinda gives the plants a jump start then when they are firmly rooted they find their own way. start a compost and fill holes before you plant and use some in your potted "plants" i never have to use fretilizer in my grows because its already in the soil. my buddy gave me about 200 pumpkins from his farm and im composting them over the winter we'll see next year how it works out. the more i learn indoors the better i grow outdoors its the same thing just on a bigger scale.

200 Pumpkins! I'm imagining a pumpkin army, like Themistocles' Spartans. Only they're wearing orange capes and hard gourds for helmets. The Pumpkin Hoplite.

I discovered, via growing Mary, the importance of soil microbes in getting soil back. See, this house was a new build, and the contractor completely denuded the hill, scraping the soil down to the bare clay and rock. It's what I now have to work with. But! Add some teas with mycorrhizae cultures, and next thing you know it starts acting like soil, darkens up, and the worms come out. Yee haw!

the pumpkin army was my first idea for halloween my 4 runner was filled all the way in back with pumpkins. we put them in my backyard and figured i'd carve some of them and use others for filler but within a week the damn squirrels figured out there was seeds in them and hallowed them out big time now they'll be compost.

Squirrel Army pwns Pumpkin Army!

heres a pic of the hydrangeas in summer

That's so different from what we're seeing now. And talk about getting some year-round color, eh? Technicolor.

Lovely gardens.

the color schemes are all my wife's doing she has been picking things that color differently throughout the year or at least different times so there is always something popping in our yard, i personally like plants that smell good. lilac,butterfly bush,bee balm,lemon balm,rose scented gerranium,thyme,anise,mj,i even have a chocolate mint it really smells like an andies mint mmmmm

Really? I used to just gorge myself on Andes mints, I love those things! She's very good at what she does. My method is decidedly haphazard, hopefully it'll look alright when it fills in. I've been finding natives growing around the property, like lamb's ear, and this weird little plant that only grows about a foot high and looks a lot like Magic RocksTM that I tend to and try to help spread. I've planted a bunch of trees, too, mostly native incense cedar, but it's difficult with this rocky clay. And my back.