Hydrangeas are beautiful.

The amazing thing about them is that the color of the flowers can be manipulated.

Bigleaf Hydrangea flowers are naturally pink, in neutral to alkaline soils, meaning soil with a ph of 6.5 and higher.  If you have acidic soil, it is possible to raise the pH in your soil by adding lime, to produce pink flowers.

When the soil in more acidic, a pH of 5.5 or lower, the flowers are blue; and when the pH in the soil is between 5.5 and 6.5, the flowers are purple.  As you will see below, it is possible to have a mixture of flower colors on one plant.  If you have neutral soil and want to produce blue flowers, you can lower the pH with aluminum sulfate.  Be careful when adding aluminum sulfate because not all plants can handle acidic soil, and you don’t want to harm neighboring plants.

Photos of my Grandma’s Hydrangeas: 

Amazing.