I have a new Royal Purple which will bloom next year. I want it to be purple, but I do not know if I should treat it toward red or toward blue. Our soil is (I think) slightly acid in Little Rock, AR. It seems to me if a plant tends toward blue then treating it for red will turn it purple and if it tends toward red you treat it toward blue to make purple. Does this make sense? Anyway I don't know how to treat Royal Purple and I still won't know next season because I understand that the color the first year is not the color it will reach after several years. SO complicated. Does someone have a suggestion?
Thanks, abg
getting purple from Royal Purple Hydrangea
I'd just let it grow. No sense guessing. It's going to be nice in any color. You have plenty of time to treat the soil. Just a thought from a lazy ol' gardener.
Personally, I would leave it alone and see what color it blooms without intervention--you may end up loving it in its natural color, then you don't have to mess around with constantly trying to adjust the pH of soil that is going to be constantly fighting you and trying to get back to its natural pH. And if it tends to change color a bit from year to year, I would let it go for a couple years (unless the color is terribly different than what you were hoping for). Then if you don't think it's purple enough you can start to experiment.
You could also do some homework in the meantime--first of all finding out really what your soil pH is where it's planted, and then searching the web or contacting the grower to find out what pH range they recommend for it to have a nice purple color, that should give you some idea if you're going to have to put a lot of effort into making it the color you want.