I’m an idiot when it comes to gardening, but I do it enthusiastically every year. This year, I’m trying to actually get better at it. So can someone more gardening-oriented answer a few questions for me?
I planted a hydrangea last year right smack in the middle of my yard. It looks nice, but a little forlorn out there all alone. Is there any plants that would do well next to it?
Along the same lines, I want BLUE flowers on that hydrangea, so I inundate it with some kind of Miracle Grow stuff that the people at the nursery told me would turn it blue. How much of this stuff should I put on it? Would ~1-2 Gallons of water per week with the Miracle Grow stuff in it be too much/too little/just right? The box tells me how much to use per gallon of water, but doesn’t tell me how often to use it.
I have lots of questions about general maintenance. I know there’s some plants that should be pruned in the fall, some in the spring, but I don’t know which is which. I also need some advice about creating new beds and maintaining my current beds. I suspect some of my current beds could use some fertilizer and/or new soil. So… lots of questions, more than can be answered here. Can someone recommend a couple basic gardening books that will answer these questions? Nothing too intense - small words and lots of pictures, please.
My mother bought me a Better Homes and Gardens guide that’s come in really really useful on several occasions in the past year.
It is to gardening what Joy of Cooking is to recipes - a great general reference tool that covers the all the basics you need to know.
I used it to figure out when to prune my lilac (in a week), to diagnose a vicious case of leaf curl on my peach trees (too late to do anything this year, but I’ll be spraying them down this fall and next spring to avoid re-infestation), to decide how much to prune back the mulberry last fall (2/3 of the new growth), and tons of other things. We have a few other books that go more in-depth on specialised topics like container gardens and basic landscaping/planning, but this book has been my bible as far as the nitty-gritty how-do-I-do-this type of things.
Your local Extension Agent is your friend. He (or she) is listed in the telephone book and is anxiously awaiting your call. They’ll have tons of recommendations.
Perhaps the best thing to do would be take a careful look around your neighborhood/area, and see what gardens you like the look of. That will be the best guide as to what does well in your climate. Then when you see someone working in their yard, ask them. IME, gardeners are very eager to share info - as well as plants.
My vague recollection is that hydrangeas need a metal - aluminum? - added to the soil to bloom blue. I could do a google search to jog my memory, but you could just as well!
I’m a HUGE fan of planting local plants, planting in masses, and avoiding anything that requires special treatment.
It’s aluminum sulfate, which you can buy alone, rather than combined with fertilizer (such as Miracle Gro). That way, you can acidify the soil without the danger of excessive fertilization.
If what the nursery recommended was Miracid, I’m not sure it contains enough acidifying ingredients to actually make hydrangea flowers blue. As I understand it, it is mostly a fertilizer formulated to keep plants that require acid soils from developing nutrient deficiencies due to insufficient uptake of iron. Hydrangeas don’t actually need acidic soil to thrive, as azaleas and blueberries do, they just need it to produce blue, rather than pink flowers.
I forgot that I wanted to recommend a book: The Well-tended Perennial Garden by Tracy DiSabato-Aust. It’s an excellent book for planning, planting and pruning perennial beds
Agreed. You get winters, there. Natives do well there for a reason;)
I like stuff that has a long bloom period. I’ve been conned by a botanist friend into planting stuff he collects in China. Hence the tree peony that must be a progenitor of the hybrids-MUCH taller, and small flowers in spikes, and the agnus castus that leafs out a month later than everyone else’s…
There’s nothing quite so much fun as messing about in dirt.
For what to plant alongside the hydrangea: could you perhaps post a pic & expand a bit on what sort of thing you are going for? It’s hard for me to picture it sitting smack dab in the middle of your garden.
Is it in the middle of the lawn? In a bed with room for something else? Is it a shady spot or sunny spot? Do you want another perennial? Or perhaps bulbs?
I like coming up with garden ideas, but it’s quite difficult not being able to picture this hydrangea at all. I probably won’t be much help since I’m fairly sure I’m across the ocean from you, but who knows!
My tried-and-true method for making hydrangeas bluer than blue: About once a week, I pour coffee grounds out around the hydrangea.
You don’t want to over water – mine are only getting maybe one cup of water with their coffee, plus whatever rain falls. But you can acid-feed at least once a week.
Hydrangeas are natural pH detectors. If your flowers are pink then your soil is alkaline. If they’re blue it’s acidic. Alum or iron in the soil will also encourage blueness. Acidic soil makes these elements more available to plants.
So… ideally, you should test your soil to determine pH. You can purchase test kits a most garden suppliers. After you know that, you can then research how and what to use to lower the pH, and how much material and time you’ll need.
Or you can just wing it until you get the results you want.
Wait until the hydrangea blooms before deciding whether soil pH needs alteration. If pink flowers indicate that it does, frequent Miracid applications are the wrong way to go about it - not enough acidification and probably way too much fertilizer, which can encourage weak lanky growth and even burn leaves. Aluminate sulfate added according to directions will, over time, lower soil pH and give you blue flowers.
Additional note: small beds plunked down in the middle of lawns generally look unnatural. Work out a plan for what you want, where conditions are optimal (including sun, ease of maintenance etc.) and a design you find pleasing.
I probably won’t be much help since I’m fairly sure I’m across the ocean from you, but who knows!