i bought a hydrangea last year...the flower turned out to be whitish-green. (i hate green to begin with and this looked particularly nasty). so, i know you can modify the flower color by changing the acidity of the soil. followed what the garden center recommended - african violet food. <badword> near killed the bush. actually, it really looked like it was dead. luckily, i didn't dig it up (sometimes being too busy working is a good thing, lol) so what happens this spring? new shoots! yay! and no, i didn't give it any african violet food this year...just let it be - had nice, pretty pink flowers on it this year. probably the mulch that i used...licorice root.

then, this summer, i transplanted a hydrangea from the neighbors yard to my back yard (the other is in the front) and it took well...funny thing, the flower that was on it was white with a maroon strip near the end of the petal...couple days later the whole flower was pink. obviously, the soil in my yard is different than the soil it was in originally. amazing how it could be so different only a 100 feet away...

k. no problem - either color would have been okay. i do prefer purple tho and the bush we had when i was growing up was a really pretty bluish/purple and i'd really like to duplicate it (that's the great thing about hydrangea, you can easily change the color). color was not really too important tho - it was more important that the plant just survive the transplant.

k. next thing. i put some mulch down a week or so later...licorice root, like i put out front.







the flower turned purple!!! (i'm a purple freak...i usually make my posts on forums in purple...can't do that on this board tho...

k. nuf funny stuff. *clears throat* time for the serious stuff...the question.

the plant that i transplanted survived being moved and survived being eaten by the japanese beetles and also survived the family of groundhogs that live next door and crawl under my fence just at the spot where i put the hydrangea...the leaves look funny tho. kind of rusty around the edges - just some of the leaves at the bottom of the bush.

i purposely put it in the shade of the tree. it gets no sun in the morning (the trees block it completely) and then gets some afternoon sun for a couple of hours and then the sun is behind the neighbors house. so, about 3-4 hours total.

is that too much? and if so, should i move it now or wait until early next summer? it didnt' seem to go into any shock when i moved it this year...it took really well and i don't want to move it again if i don't have to...

yes, they will wilt if they don't have enough water. that's not the issue tho - there's no wilting at all and considering that the grass is brown because we haven't had a lot of rain, it's pretty amazing that the hydrangea ISN'T wilted!!

I think the blueist you would get would be a niko blue hygrandea.

Licorice mulch huh....the closest I can even come to that is when find some horse poo that game from some horse who ATE licorice.My SIL yard has some patches of horse poo and when mow them they smell like licorice!

I get some pale liliac out of my hydrageas.Then have my forever pink.I have oak leaf too.I just wish the dogs would quit running through it.its now down to 1 stem.
rooting your cuttings is easy too.I just cut...stick in pot of soil and forget about them almost I make sure they stay watered when dry.I'll do more end of month.

I move my plants all the time.I'm even gonna move a hydrandea today.I just got a 10 ft side porch...empty in front.gotta fill it in.

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k, thx for responses. it's clear to me that the licorice root is acidic, since after i placed it around the bush, the flower turned purple. in fact a very dark purple.

alan, from what you said the light factor is not causing the problem i asked about. any ideas as to why the leaves look 'rusty' around the edges? thx