Now, Some are really is the time for Hydrangeas and there is a lot of varieties you might not be aware of. Now, we got the common one, here, which is the macrophylla which is the mophead and you see that one in a number of colors mostly, you know, pinks to reds, blue, and then of course the white like we see here, and that is fairly common.
Another neat one here is actually more like a globe type and it is the Annabelle. Now, this one you are going to watch because one is, it never really gets a brilliant colors such but it really has a unique flower and when it grows sometimes get a little spindly, and you have to wack it back every couple of years to get that tight foliage or else, as you can see, you get these long, long, long branches and they sort of fall over. So, you need to be prune heavily.
Another type that we have got here is the Lace-cap and this one has flowers on there outside of the flower head. And there very unique as well and in this case, we have got a very gated leaf which makes it that much more special.
Now, a lot of things people might not understand about hydrangeas is that it come in different colors but you can actually change the colors. Now, with blues, you can actually change them sort of to a pinky color and you can do that by adding lime to the soil.
Now, we have got a blue one here and you can actually see the color change, and that might be associated with different acidity levels. There in the soil below this hydrangea. You can see we have got the dark blue and then, we almost got sort of a pinky blue here. Where you can see obviously there is a ph difference.
Now, if you want your pink or reddish colored one to change to blue, you can actually add aluminum sulfate and that will change your color over it and it works really nice. Now, the white ones are hard to change so do not bother adding anything to those.
The other thing you need to know about hydrangeas is that if you shear them right back like we were talking about with the Annabelle. You can actually loose the flowers for next year. What you need to do is you need to prune them right after they flower and preferably not prune the whole shrub back.
What you do is you can prune back some of the old growth leaving them new growth that is come up this year to produce flowers for next year and then, you will always have something that is beautiful tight and lots of color.
Now, if it just got out of control, wack it back, clean out all the old wood and you may not get great flowers for next but the following year, it will be beautiful.
Now, I want to end on a really neat type of hydrangea and that is the Hydrangea Aspera. Now, with most hydrangeas they need a fair amount of sun, although as you can see here we have got a little of shade in here and they are all doing fine.
But with the Aspera, it needs to have the shade and it is a great one because it has a tropical looking foliage to it. it actually has a sort of a fussy leaf to it and then, it has that lace-cap looking flower on it, which is a light pink.
Now, do not try changing the color on this one. I do not think it will be very successful but it is really neat hydrangea. So, you might try some hydrangeas, they are a great way to add something to your garden.
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