Summertime Blues

Here are a couple of height-of-the-summer blooms in the garden these days.  There's just something about blue flowers, don't you think?  We get lots of questions about blue hydrangeas.  Like, how to make them blue. Some varieties are bred to be pink and only pink, but some can be either blue or pink depending on the acidity of the soil. 

Blue Mophead

To get the blue color, the soil needs to be more acidic.  One way to make this happen is to add coffee grounds to the soil around the plant.  If you're not a coffee drinker (or if you just want to get a jumpstart on the project), stop by Starbucks and ask for a sack of coffee grounds.  They'll give you as much as you can carry.

Varegated LaceCap

And if you want to make sure you get every bloom of the season, check out Gail's video about pruning hydrangeas in the spring.

Dried Arrangement at the Workbench

Even after all these years of practice, we find the art of drying hydrangeas tricky.  We'll show you how we do that one of these days too!  In the meantime, stop by soon to see them,  fresh in the garden,  and also worked into arrangements throughout the shop.