Homemade compost is a great source of slow release nutrients for hydrangeas. Either top dress the soil beneath your plants with your compost and water well or brew up a batch of compost tea and give your plants a deep drink of it. You can repeat your application of compost tea in 2 to 3 weeks.
The easiest way to make Hydrangea fertilizer is to make leaf mold. Gather up your autumn leaves, shred them if you've got time, and perhaps add in some coffee grounds for a bit of nitrogen. Then just let them compost into a fine, dark, natural plant food that's full of balanced nutrients for your hydrangeas.
Some gardeners report success in turning their hydrangeas blue by applying coffee grounds to the soil. The coffee grounds make the soil more acidic, allowing the hydrangea to more easily absorb aluminum. In addition, fruit peels, lawn clippings, peat moss and pine needles, are thought to have a similar effect.
Best Fertilizer For Hydrangeas
Organic, slow-release fertilizers for roses (such as a 15-10-10, or 10-5-5 formula) work well on hydrangeas, giving the plants the nutrients they need to increase the size and quantity of their blooms.
By altering the soil pH with vinegar, you can actually turn your pink-flowering hydrangeas blue! For this trick, simply dilute your vinegar in water before pouring it around the base of your hydrangeas, and within just a few weeks you could have fresh and bountiful blue blooms.
Though hydrangeas prefer protection from hot direct sun, too much shade can prevent them from forming flower buds. Ideal light conditions for hydrangeas are several hours of direct morning sun with afternoon shade, or dappled shade that allows plenty of bright indirect light.
Start adding coffee grounds to the soil surrounding your hydrangeas in late fall. Sprinkle them around your hydrangeas, but be sure to work them into the soil to help eliminate any off-putting smell. You do not need to do this process often–just two to three times per year should be sufficient.
Hydrangeas generally begin blooming in the later summer and early autumn. They'll sprout leaves in the Spring months, but the blooms likely won't appear until July. So the best time to begin treating your hydrangeas with coffee grounds is in early summer before blooms appear.
Along with planting them in the right place, properly watering your hydrangeas is essential to bigger and better blooms. "Hydrangeas should be watered deeply several times per week to encourage deep root growth," says Enfield. "Water should be applied at the base of the plant to keep the leaves and flowers dry.
You can use vinegar to lower the pH of your soil, but be aware that in order to achieve blue blooms, you will need both an acidic environment and aluminum ions. The acidic environment will also need to be a sustained over a period of time, which could be hard if rainwater is washing the vinegar away.
If your hydrangeas do get infected, you have several options, including compost tea, hydrogen peroxide, garlic oil, or liquid kelp. You can also apply the fungicides chlorothalonil or thiophanate-methyl.
Homemade compost is a great source of slow release nutrients for hydrangeas. Either top dress the soil beneath your plants with your compost and water well or brew up a batch of compost tea and give your plants a deep drink of it. You can repeat your application of compost tea in 2 to 3 weeks.
Miracle-Gro Performance Organics Blooms Nutrition
This is an all-purpose blossom booster that's suitable for use on a wide variety of perennial and annual blooming plants, including hydrangeas.
However, slow-release is certainly not the only way to fertilizer hydrangeas. A less expensive fast release fertilizer such as a 10-10-10 will work just as well if applied twice during the summer.
Water your hydrangeas in the morning before the heat of the sun is strong enough to quickly evaporate soil moisture. Try to avoid watering at night, which can encourage mold and mildew as the moisture sits through the cool night. Water your hydrangeas through the growing season as well as in late fall.
If your soil is more alkaline, your hydrangeas will be pink or even purple. According to Garden Design, adding lime or eggshells to the soil will ensure a pinker color, while adding aluminum sulfate, pine needles, or coffee grounds can give your hydrangeas the blues.
In most cases, the grounds are too acidic to be used directly on soil, even for acid-loving plants like blueberries, azaleas and hollies. Coffee grounds inhibit the growth of some plants, including geranium, asparagus fern, Chinese mustard and Italian ryegrass.
Water at a rate of 1 inch per week throughout the growing season. Deeply water 3 times a week to encourage root growth. Bigleaf and smooth hydrangeas require more water, but all varieties benefit from consistent moisture.
Can You Water Plants with Coffee? Plants that like coffee grounds also respond well to watering with coffee liquid. However, it is a fairly strong fertilizer, so this watering should not be done more than once a week. To prepare the mixture, boil the coffee and pour one and a half times as much water.
Although there are many types of hydrangeas, they all require similar environments. They grow best in about 4 hours of morning sun or filtered shade throughout the day. Keep in mind that do not like extremely hot conditions, so try to locate them in an area where they can enjoy some afternoon shade.
First, add a 1/4 cup of sugar to the room temperature water in the vase. The sugar helps feed the stems and increases the life of the cut flowers.