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Endless Summer losing color

15 years ago

I used aluminum sulfate and my hydrangeas bloomed first in pink, then turned purple and then went to blue. There are a lot of blooms but now they are losing their color. Most are a dingy white. In addition, the plant seems to be weighted down with them. It is heavy at the bottom. Do I clip the blooms when they start to look old or turn white? Do I add more aluminum sulfate?

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Comments (3)

luis_pr
15 years ago
How many hours of sun does the plant get and at what time of the day? Too much sun could cause a slight bleaching of blooms and some sunscald on leaves. If the blooms look too "dingy", you can always deadhead them at any time. For information on deadheading, read the section titled Removing Old Blooms in "Pruning: Method One" of the link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Deadheading and pruning Info
sunrise5656
Original Author
15 years ago
Hi Luis,
I think you are right. It is probably too much sun. The plants face east and get the morning sun however, there is a tree above which provides some shade even with the morning sun. Maybe it's too much. One of the plants, the one that gets more sun has leaves that look sort of reddish brown. Is there something I can add to the plant to bring the blue back? Should I do the aluminum sulfate more than once?
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Somewhere near the soil pH reading of 7, blooms turn a light blue to green to white color that others have described before as light blue or a faint blue. It seems you need to acidify the soil more or more often. Get a soil ph kit to help guide you. Right now, you are doing this a little blind as you do not know how acidic/alkaline the soil is. You want to go further down to readings below a 6 and apparently you are above that. As always, make sure you do not go overboard with amendments as they can burn the roots if you apply too much too fast. Liquids amendments will work faster but have to be reapplied more often. Solids are slower acting; I cannot tell if yours just hasn't kicked in but say, in 1-2 weeks you would have noticed a soil pH change. Make sure you are not overwatering either as this sometimes can make the shrubs be unable to absorb minerals. I get heavy rains in the Fall and this triggers some hydrangea leaves to turn light green for a while (but then they self correct without amendments).
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If you are panicky about that, consider cutting the leaf itself about an inch or two from where the leaf connects to the stem. Less if you want. The part left will, in time, disintegrate on its own by Spring. It is a similar approach to the one used when deadheading blooms this time of the year. We recently had a cold spell too that, I originally thought was going to turn the leaves to mush but, eh, I saw no damage to any hydrangea leaves. Now temps are heading north to the 80s and low in the 70s... Sigh.... No wonder hydrangeas stay "awake" so late over here. Going dormant over here must be like trying to sleep with someone snoring nearby. :o) Luis Here is a link that might be useful: Pruning and deadheading info
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I don't grow any of the Forever and Ever, but Endless Summer is fully hardy here, right on the border between zone 4 & 5. When we have good snow cover during cold temps, I get surviving leaf buds on the branches, and even last winter when it got into the negative teens when we had absolutely no snow, it still came through with flying colors and is blooming profusely. I have it planted in morning sun next to a building and only a couple hundred feet from the Merrimack River, so it may have some protection from any late season frosts. For me it's a no fuss plant. I do have H. All Summer Beauty, which is always a bit taller than Endless Summer and doesn't have quite as many flower clusters, though they tend to be bigger. It's paler in color than ES. It's in the same bed as ES though it gets a bit more sun. The bed is really old horse manure plopped down about 8 inches deep over almost pure fine sand (too lazy to dig it in at my age) - the ideal of well drained & moist soil. On both it has lead to interesting colors, a mix of pink & blue, since the sand is acid and the manure close to neutral.
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Deep snow cover as in pile a lot of snow on top of them to insulate them from even colder air? Just wanted to confirm since I am a complete novice and hadn't heard of that method. Probably doesn't help I grew up in Mississippi and moved north not too many years ago. Luckily my current Endless Summer in a pot seems to have done well through this last winter (no polar vortex, but still cold) with new leaves forming on the old growth. And that pot was left foolishly uncovered all winter. I'm only this year starting to put a lot of time, effort, and thought into the yard now that other big projects with the house are done. Good to know the importance of old growth on Endless Summer. I had planned to protect them, but this shows it is even more important. Luckily I like the look of them even without the blooms (although blue blooms are a huge huge plus), so absolutely worst case I will at least have that. Many of my neighbors seem to be very successful with their Macrophyllas (not certain what they do in winter) so hopefully I can learn how to protect them.
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luis_pr
15 years ago
Well, sunrise5656, it is kind of early for Fall to be here but some hydrangea varieties will turn their leaves a shade of red during the fall. Oakleafs come to mind but ES and so early? Not sure what could be doing it. Could you post a picture showing the bush with some of the leaves? Browns usually suggest a soil moisture issue but reddish??? Have you recently sprayed anything near the bushes?

I think you may not get the blue color back as ES blooms normally go through a series of color changes... an example, the dingy whites may transform to greens and later get some pink... things like that. It is what hydrangea blooms do. The dingy whites usually do not last too long before they change again. I have a Sun Goddess that just went throught the dingy whites change and is now turning green. Obviously, if you do not like the blooms, you can deadhead them and ES should produce new blooms after taking a break (several weeks to a month?).

To continue getting blues in alkaline soil, you need to continue amending the soil regularly because garden soil will revert to its original pH when left alone. Follow the package directions in terms on how much to apply and how often.

Here is a link that might be useful:

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