My hydrangia, so pretty before blooming, looks durn near dead. I've tried deep watering & light watering, and i think it's in a good spot, , , it get 31/2 hours of morning sun, then is shaded by the house during the afternoon. Also, it started doing this Before we had our hot spell.
Does it need some nitrogen? this didn't start happening until the blooms came. I's in clayish soil, but i amened the soil before i planted, and i made the hole pretty big.
Would bone meal or blood meal help?
B.
Drooping hydrangias
Blue, its been my experience with them that they have "fainting spells" quite often until they're established. Sounds like you amended the soil properly so just give it some time. Take care not to overwater. I have one right beside the house that gets sun until about 1pm and, although it gets a bit limp on the very top sometimes, looks fine. Its been there for the 3rd year now. I water by laying the hose right at the ground underneath it and soak well about once a week.
I've just moved another Lady in Red - I have five and I've had to move three of them. This last one kept having 'fainting spells' in the afternoon. The ground was well amended, watered, etc. but the leaves were terribly drooping (only in the afternoon) and the leaves were smaller than its kin in more shade. It is now in more shade and bounding back.
I have an oak leaf in the same area that's doing just fine. I have found that the LIR cannot take ANY afternoon sun and if you looked in my back garden, you'd think it total shade. But there is a shaft of hot sun that was hitting just this one plant in the afternoon.
I have a variegated one that droops a bit in the afternoon but not as badly - I think it will become acclimated. So I think it depends on what kind you have...
Hi! I am new at Gardening and DG, fairly new at the internet and almost fairly old at everything else LOL. I have just about filled my mostly shady yard with hydrangeas .ALL kinds. I also bought a book( I love books) by Lawson-Hall& Rothera. Its title is "Hydrangeas A gardeners guide. " ( Its the book that got me worried about Honey Fungus,but that is another story)Anyway....according to those guys "....Sometimes on a warm day,drooping leaves will give the impression of a distressed and very thirsty plant. closer examination, however, will reveal that the soil is quite moist.The explaination of the malaise( these guys are Brits,)is over exposure to hot sun....Yadda yadda yadda...Once the temperature drops they will recover. Yadda yadda yadda. They appear to suffer no lasting ill effect from this transitory setback.Yadda yadda yadda. Then they go to write. "When plants in a shady position show similar signs of distress the situation is more serious.This is a sure indication that the soil is too dry, and measures have to be taken to correct it. The obvious course of applying water is effective.Yadda yadda yadda. More long-term care should include checking on the condition of the soil, to which it may be necessary to add more compost or leaf mould to increase water retention; mulching may also be a wise course. Another possibility is that the shrub is growing under a tree which, while providing welcome shade, is also taking priority when rainfall is limited. Young plants, in particular,always require close attention in times of water shortage as their root system is shallow and small and they may die easily...." Whew! That took me forever to write. Are y'all still there? Lol. Anyway I hope I was helpful. Joan
Do i need to dead head the blooms?
It seems the drooping occurs on the brown, woody looking stalks, and not the fresh green ones.
Do i need to fertilize?
Will the plant die? Can i keep it from dying?
It was doing so good until it bloomed. . . .
B.
shoot my still have fainting spells when its hot. its been in the ground for 3 yrs now. i just got a varigated one and it behaves better then the older one. it droops in the heat though.
All of my hydrangeas droop/wilt. Two of my regular type hydes are about 5 yrs old. I also have 2 Annabelles and for me they are the worst at wilting. I try to water every other evening.
well, i've put some blood meal on it. . . maybe some nitro will help.
But it seems drooping is a big thing for these plants. (Then why iusn't every other one i see droopy?) everybody else has these big bushy solid green plants that look great!!
Oh well. I'll just keep plugging away.
B.
PS, i'll upload pics in the morning.
B.
I looked on hydrangeas.com for information I though may be of use to you.What the page said is that the only pruning that must be done for the health of the plant is the removal of dead stalks and that you can do this at any time.It also said that you could dead head at anytime. Okay, So ...if it was MY hydrangea, this is what I would do. I would do a finger in the soil test,if the soil was dry I would water deeply,make sure that it had a good mulch covering around the base and give it a couple hours or overnight to see if it perked up,If it was thirsty it should look alot better,now if I did the finger in the soil test and found it damp I would pull the mulch away from the plant base to hopefully let it dry out a bit, because if it is drooping all of the time and the soil is wet or damp I would assume I had over watered it. I would not fertilize because I had been taught that fertilizing a severly distressed plant won't help it,it may in fact make it worse. I would dead head and take off any dead wood and then I would watch it and hope for the best. If afterI did all that and it still was not doing well I would move it. That is what I would do. Joan
That is almost word for word the advice i got from Theresa Shrum, one of the hosts on AM 750's "Walter Reeves Show"
I'm trying everything, i'll let ya'll know.
B.
My 2 cents is this. I'm in 8b zone and hydrangea grow in almost complete shade. Around here they don't like much direct sun which is very useful to me. They really don't need a lot of water which I think people tend to over water these plants.
I have 2 hydrangea, one is the new ever blooming the other is the old fashion kind. They are both pink. What can I add to the soil to make them blue?
To make or keep them blue you need highly acidic soil. Aluminum sulfate is what I have used.
Vinegar will work also. Mix with some water, pour it around the plants.
Here are my 2 prissy Annabelles. They are so wilted- the camera doesnt do them justice. I am thinking of taking them out this fall. I just watered them last night. I just can't water them every day!
One of my mop-heads....
Core, must disagree with you on the vinegar and putting it on plants. If you use it undiluted it will kill them just like Roundup. Even diluted I would not use it anywhere near plants. Maybe someone else knows more than I about this subject. Anyone?????
Now, I have read that pickling lime can be used to change the color of hydrangeas, if you don't have the regular kind. Even that must be added to about 5 gallons of water. Walter Reeves website has some good info on hydrangeas.
One of my neighbors with a lovely mophead hydrangea told me how he does it. I asked because it gets full sun at the worst time of day--about 11:00 to 2:00. It does wilt, but not as badly as mine, and it blooms in glorious profusion. It's only a couple of years old. He said he planted it there to protect it from deer damage (right next to the street) even though the sun would get it. He indicated that to vary the color from bloom to bloom he dug a large hole and put organic matter (didn't say what) in only some areas of the hole. He had pink, light blue, and dark blue all on the same plant. The deer had browsed the plant on the lawn side only, and very few blossoms on that side. I think that was the difficulty with my own blossoms this year--deersipoosies! As to the wilting issue, I think it's the same old moral about $5 hole for a 50 cent plant, huh? His plant started out about a foot tall, and I've watched it grow two feet more--good roots do everything for a plant.
Personally I don't like the mutli colored plants. I see them a lot around here because the soil is acidic and we get very blue plants. People usually use lime to try and turn them red, I've never seen anyone pull it off, but I've seen a lot of odd uneven colors. More purples then anything else.