The following was received via email: The reason I joined the UBC Botanical Garden Forum was simply to to try to identify a hydrangea. My neighbour has this one, and can't remember where he bought it or what it is called. It blooms with all three colours at once, pink balls, blue balls, and kind of a reddish pink/purple. I have asked at a local nursery here in Powell River, and they don't know - just say likely the grower fed it, and it will take a couple of years for it to return to its natural colour. I figured if anyone would know what it was, or how to do it, you folks at UBC Bot. gardens would. Thank you if you can help me out. Elizabeth (Pup)
I really don't know much about hydrangeas, but I think that the color of the hydrangea blossoms are due to the acidity in the soil. My husband has read that you can change the color just by how you fertilize it. Mine is a baby and I am struggling to keep it growing right now. I have seen pink (light and dark) ones, blue ones and recently the most beautiful purple ever. I have never seen one with more than one color on the same bush. NEAT!!
Elizabeth--we have a similar bush here. Obviously got some lime or similar mineral that pushed the pinker colours, plus the gradient from pink to blue can give a neat purple colour with some varieties. The actual cause of the blue colour seems to be aluminum, which becomes soluble and available to the plant in acid soil. Many hydrangeas (and other plants) are grown commercially in soiless mixes that have little or no aluminum, so you can buy pink flowering bushes that will turn blue once planted into "real" soil. I have quite a few 3 gal. sized hydrangeas here grown in mostly bark mix, in containers, that will not bloom blue unless I give them some rock dust or other source of the aluminum, no matter what the pH of the potting mix might be. And then of course the media must also be acidic, for that rock or soil to release the aluminum to the hydrangea... I agree with your nursery that the flower colour will settle down with time as your plant roots into your garden soil. Glen
