Darkest blue hydrangea

I have been searching for a very deep blue hydrangea. I have only seen this dark color in mopheads but they are an old type and no one remembers what the name is. I see them here and there but never at nurseries and cannot find the name. If anyone knows the name for a really deep blue one, please let me know. I feel I need to have one or a dozen of them!!

Is this deep blue enough? I thought it was Nikko Blue, but really don't know for sure. Sometimes I get green ones from the plant.

Some of the best blues are Nikko Blue, Blue Prince, Enziandom, Marechal Foch, Hamburg. There are more but my suggestion for you is to see the owners of the plants that you like (go in late Spring to early summer) and see if they will give you cuttings. That way you are guaranteed that you will like the end result.

I will try and get cuttings, a good idea. Can I do cuttings now? I have my eye on a plant my neighbor has. I have searched the internet and not found the really deep blue I am looking for which tells me that it may be that the soil here is very acid so perhaps it is Nikko blue which comes up as the darkest on my search. Its such a beautiful cobalt blue. But I think I will need to do cuttings. I may pick up a Nikko blue and stick it in, its lovely in your picture, and who doesn't need another hydrangea???

I just got a hydrangea lobbii. I have no idea what it will do but it looked so different that I felt I needed it.

Here is some information on propagating by cuttings:

http://www.hydrangeashydrangeas.com/propagation.html

PS - I would ask for "a few" cuttings just in case one cutting does not make it.

If you want, I can check and see if I have a rooted branch on mine. Again, the plant came with the house, so I can't guarantee that it's Nikko Blue . . .

Oh, I would love a rooted branch if you have one! Would be happy to pay postage.

Thank you for the propagation site, that is a really great site. Good for rooting in general. Very nicely done.

Will check tomorrow when it's light!! No postage necessary. I'd like to share this hydrangea .

Okay - I guess I don't have a rooted branch. I've put a couple down, though - so maybe next spring? Please remind me if I forget . . .

Oh I will!! And thanks for thinking of me. If ever I find the name of the one I am looking for I will share it here. Oh, I sounded like the U2 song, And I Still Haven't Found What I am Looking For.....

Just wanted to say, I took a cutting from a friend's variegated variet in the summer. I have it in a glass of water on my windowsill right now, will probably pot it up in the early spring - it really wants to live, has added new leaves and grown alot just in the water.

As for the blueness, alot of it does have to do with your soil - but not all. I have the same varieties in my yard, growing within a few feet of each other, yet they are different shades of blue.

I think you may be right. I see the very deep blue around here a lot and our soil is highly acid. I think Nikko blue just may be what I am seeing.

I have a lot of hydrangeas in the ground now, I have maybe 15-18 varieties. I have a couple of different types that are evergreen, they are happy in the ground and next year I should have a pretty show. I LOVE hydrangeas.

Do any of you have the Halo series of hydrangeas? I have Angel Song and its the prettiest thing, each petal is outlined. Of course I feel I need more of that family. Never enough, just when you think you are done, boom, there is a whole new series.

My Nikko Blue from Lowes turned out to be a lacecap. One of these days, I guess I will try to get a NB too. But this time I will buy it when in bloom, not when it is in the discount rack at Lowe's. Hee hee hee!

Halos have not filtered for sale here; we would have to buy by mail order. I remember what I liked about them was that they were compact but the blooms on the various varieties resembled each other a lot and the Dutch Lady Collection Shrubs so I finally decided to wait until I saw any of them locally, in person.

I almost killed mine. It was blooming so nicely and a mole got under it and exposed the roots. I thought it needed water so watered it like crazy. When that did not help I dug it up and found it was just sitting on an air pocket. I have moved it and have some new tiny leaves now, I think it will be okay but I came close to losing it. I got it at a nursery a few years back but have never seen them again. They do look very simular.

Cityline has one called Cityline Mars that is really pretty and has the edging, I am looking for that one. I have a few of the Cityline ones, Berlin, Vienna and Paris. I like them very much as they are small and compact, very large blooms but nice sturdy stems to hold them up so they do not flop. They also bloom for a long time.

Well lucky you, rebeccanne. I tried finding the Cityline Series locally too last Fall. I assumed I would be able to find them because the nursery was listed in the website for the series. But nooooo. The nursery had not a single hydrangea by then. I may try again around March-April 2010, when hydrangeas are restocked over here.

I do my cutting the same way as the above link but instead of putting them in a bag i have an old fish tank i use to put all my cuttings in then i just spray them every so ofter.. I have gotten 5 out of 5 rooted this way.. I find hydrangeas very easy to root.. I did this for my Hydrangea macrophylla 'Bavaria' I wasn't going to even try since i just bought it this summer and it was so little still.. however you really dont need a big cutting as mine were only about 3" long from top of small leave to where i cut it..

We have been seeing more hydrangea that the blooms are real deep purple, not blue or pink. What type is that or have the owners fed it something special to make it that way? I prefer the blue or pink. Is there a white hydrangea?

There are many white hydrangeas - Annabelle is probably the most touted but it does have large heavy heads that often fall to the ground with heavy rain.

The purple, as I understand it, is in that magical zone of PH between the blue and pink, but I never verified that information.

My friend on the west coast says the folks out more often have pink (due to the alkalinity of the soil) and want blue. On the east coast he said folks have blue (our soil being more acidic) and want pink. I'm a fan of the pink but like the blue.

Limelight is almost light green in shade but it's more white in sun:

My understanding on purple is the same as pirl's--you've got to be at a close to neutral pH since at acid pH it would go all the way blue and alkaline pH it would go all the way pink. For a really deep bluish purple the soil would be just a little bit acidic. I think it would be tricky to try and purposely get your pH to that range--if it's naturally there then you're lucky and you'll see this effect. Or else if you've adjusted your soil in a previous year to get your pH on the opposite side of where it is naturally and you let it go and don't keep up with your adjustments every year the pH will gradually drift back to where it would be normally, and along the way you may get a year of purplish blooms.

I have found with acid soil that we will get the pink ones and they turn blue. The ones that are bright red will be deep purple here. I think that is what you are seeing. I had a nice red one when I bought it now its a deep purple after one year in the ground. White stays white but with acid soil we will get pink on the ones that are white having flowers fade to a pink. The original bloom color is what is different.

With the combination of acidic soil and the leaching effect of the lime from the cement foundation of the house here are our two "inherited landscaping" hydrangeas that have the varieties of pinks/purples.

Pirl, that's an awesome photo. I find that blue is easy to achieve in Woodinville because of the acidity of the soil (augmented with leaves and conifer needles). Pink is much harder to get and maintain.

Thanks. I find the same thing here.

Seems like you're getting a lot of lime from the foundation. I have Nikko Blue next to the house, but no pink effect. I'm wondering if the cement is different or maybe just Nikko Blue stays blue?

Beautiful picture Pirl. Love the colors and plant shapes.

Yours is a lovely shade of blue, Katie. Maybe 50 year old cement/concrete is different? I haven't the foggiest idea.

Thank you, RoseKay. It's even nicer when all the lilies are in bloom since they're all pink/dark pink/white with pink and the scent is wonderful.

I'll have to look into that. I'm sure there's some chemical reason way beyond me . . . but I would be thrilled to get some pink/purple. I like the lilies in there, too.

I do bury chunks of cement with my hydrangeas that have any pink coloring and also with my tall bearded irises and my clematises. It works for me.

It's possible your soil is acidic enough that even a little lime leaching from the foundation isn't enough to move the color away from blue. If you want to try and get pink/purple, maybe try adding a little bit of lime (might not hurt to get your pH tested first though so you know how acidic your soil is first)

Thanks, ecrane. I should take the time to really turn at least one Hydrangea. I haven't had the soil tested, but I suspect that it's very acidic (I live in the midst of a rain forest, really). I've been reading up on cement and the alkalinity of the cement is simply dependent on the kind of cement used. My foundation is 35 years old, so I'm guessing that it's not going to act on the Hydrangea at all.

I do love the blue, too, though. I spend a lot of time trying to incorporate other blue things into my yard.

Spoke to our mason, who was here on a job yesterday, and the whole subject of lime affecting hydrangeas was just not his forte. He thought lime leached out fast and couldn't last 50 years and yet I do not feed mine, by the fireplace, anything at all, ever. To me there is no other explanation other than the leaching for the purple flowers and pink ones.

By fast, it think it does take several years. Not 50, but 5 or 10 maybe. I have a short, low cement block retaining wall behind a pond waterfall. I was surprised to get a lime burn on my hand when I leaned against it while weeding. The wall was very wet from a recent rain. The wall had been up for about 6 years. It was still caustic the next two years. Last year no problem. Yeah, only stupid people keep "testing", but I was really curious. It may depend on the type of mortar used. I really have no idea. I just know that it can happen.

However, right next to this wall is a 9' Pieris japonica. Those are acid soil lovers, in the same family as rhododendrons. It was there before the wall was built. It never showed any kind of stress. It could be that my acid soil was able to buffer any alkalinity leaching from the wall. I believe there has to be some reaction from fresh cement and mortar, but how strong, how long and how the surrounding soil could buffer it are all highly variable. It probably depends on both the type of mortar and cement block mortar used and the buffering capacity of the surrounding soil. It takes a lot to overwhelm the native pH of a soil, be it acid or alkaline.

The mason also said there are chemicals in cement and they do change chemicals and strength depending on the use.

The job isn't finished yet. They just put in the Belgian block cubes and cemented them in place. So last night I was out there gathering more cement chips (like gold) and spreading some around two clematises. We'll see what happens. The leaching is supposed to be a very slow effect.

This is such an interesting topic. Thanks for checking, pirl and thanks for the response snapple45. I did a brief search on the Internet and basically learned the same - the materials are highly variable.

I'm interested in hearing more about the Belgian block cubes, pirl. Where are they going?

We put in a new concrete front walk in in 2007, the spring after we bought this house. My blue dwarf hydrangea, planted directly next to the walk has been pink every year since planted. This Spring, for the first time, the buds are blue! So it took 3 years here in Vancouver for the lime to leach out of the concrete and our acid soils to prevail. (Thank goodness -- the hydrangea is near a stand of crocosmia which did not look good with pink!)

Good information, 8zoner.