Annoying bright pink hydrangea

[Beachtastic]

I made the foolish error of ordering loads of plants online when overexcited about having a garden at last after a few years living without one.

This hydrangea has just come into bloom and is a solid bright pink - that boring flat pink that hydrangeas can be. Nothing like the photo.

I now see that the description does mention "pink" but am not sure if that has changed since I placed the order last December.

Contacted Gardening Express about this and they have replied saying that I should adjust the pH of the soil using a hydrangea colourant. I know you can do that, but am I wrong for thinking there is no way it would ever look like the plant in their photo?

www.gardeningexpress.co.uk/hydrangea-macrophylla-gertrud-glahn

Sorry to pour salt on the wound OP, but I’ve got a little row of Limelight that were planted last year. They look amazing!!! A beautiful lime green turning to creamy white as the flowers mature. Luscious.

Gardening Express are an awful company to deal with. I used them several times whilst trying to fill a large space and many of the plants I ordered weren't as specified. Most notable were the Red Robin shrubs that arrived covered in leaf spot and the Lilac bushes that were just a single stem, 6 years of careful pruning and they could now be described as a bush.
Customer support is non existent.
The companies handling of customer orders during lockdown was a disgrace, I'd placed an order just before and didn't receive it until June but they'd taken the payment in full. Many people were receiving damaged and dying plants, they got greedy and kept on taking orders when they couldn't keep up with demand.

Don't worry, on my crazed spree I actually managed to get a few nice things too, including a Limelight! So I am not pointing laser-angry eyes in your direction 🤣

Sorry to say I echo your experiences. I was daft enough to include some indoor plants and after months of struggling to make them look healthy, many have ended up on the compost heap with whispered apologies 😬

Their plants, including the outdoor ones, generally look as though they have been grown in poor conditions with little care. I've had to hard prune a few things in the hope that I can start from scratch with trying to get them into some sort of shape.

The plants I've had from Sarah Raven have been absolutely fantastic - I've read some really awful things about that site on here, but my own experience has been very positive.

I came back to the UK after years living abroad and didn't realise/had forgotten how great the garden centres are, and even the shelves outside Tesco in summer!

Just swap it out for a H. Limelight, they’re much nicer all round (in my opinion). And at least you know what you’re getting.

I have a mega bright pink hydrangea- I would call it red in fact but I’m not sure it’s technically classed as red. I absolutely adore it.

There’s an also lovely violet and white one right next to it (in next doors front garden but that close). So I’m not sure it is always the soil.

In my back garden there is a more pink / violet one which is also lovely. I see the bluish purples around and they are nice but not my favourites.

I think the picture on the website has been taken early in the flowering season, because mine was the same with the pale green centre and as the season went on, it became full pink.

You'd definitely be able to use the special soil supplement to change the colour - the picture looks like it’s mid-way between pink and blue (so maybe neutral between the acid/alkaline balance). Would be fun trying - I’m going to experiment with mine too, just for a change!

The blurb with the seller's photo does actually say "This cultivar has particularly large, rounded flower heads of a deep, rich pink"

But yes as other say it's all down to the soil. I bought a blue one, which turned pink the following year despite me repotting in ericaceous soil and feeding it whatever it needed to be blue. It is firmly pink (with one bloom which seems to be fighting to be less pink). I'm just happy it flowered at all - it was on its last warning!

I've used them several times now (everything was spot on last year). Recently received two orders and they were awful...one plant was a dead stalk! Never again.

I think the sales image is of a bloom before all the individual bracts/flowers have opened properly. That's why they are creamy. If you use a hydrangea colourant now you should get something more like the photo for any late opening flowers (if there are any) and for next year. It's surprising how quickly it can have some effect, but you have to keep treating regularly to maintain the colour.

I have far too many hydrangeas and most are from cuttings. They root really easily, so if you see one you really like in a friend or relatives garden ask if you can take a cutting. Plenty of guides online on how to do it.

Thank you @EnfysPreseli that's encouraging about the creamy colour.

I've already been eyeing other hydrangeas for cuttings!

Yes. Mine go from blue to purple to bright pink on the same bush and change colour every year.

Add an ericaceous feed to the soil. You can get either a granule that you add straight to the soil or a liquid that you mix with water and water the plant with. Or you can get ericaceous compost.

I live in a chalk area and love blue hydrangeas so have known I'm on a losing streak in the garden since day one. I've spent years buying blue lacecaps of various names and not one has ever come up blue despite using all the blueing chemicals and keeping them in ericaceous John Innes in pots. I have one out at the moment that I noted in my garden diary was 'a lovely pale blue, alternative colours the usual pink and white' and so typically it's flipping pink... if it ever deigns to flower! But it's a double lacecap so it sort-of makes up for the colour by being slightly unusual.
The one that does come up the correct colour is H quercifolium, which is lacy white with huge oak-shaped leaves. Sigh. I think the only place the blues ever come up right is Cornwall.

We had a blue one in our front garden, it was huge. I hated it and eventually we took it out, our neighbour nearly cried as she would have had it, apparently the blue ones are rare?

Hydrangea quercifolia looks amazing! 🤩

I'm perplexed. To accompany a clearly lilac bloom in the picture, the blurb describes the variety as 'a deep rich pink'. Well - which is it? Pink according to the description, or lilac according to the photo? It can't be both. Nor does it say anything in the wording about the pH of the soil changing the flower colour.

Trades Descriptions Act anyone...?

It is but it's also huge! I hack mine back annually... It does go pinkish green when the central (fertile) flowers have gone over.

I’ve enjoyed reading this thread, though my days of gardening are over because of health issues.
Just wanted to comment that I have always been puzzled by the liking for hydrangeas. I have clear memories from childhood of the majority of older houses being surrounded by a shrubbery with these plants which were dusty and covered I spider webs and with very drab flowers. I much preferred rhoderdendra with glossy foliage and delicate brightly coloured flowers. (I am aware of the latter plant’s invasiveness etc)

The photo you posted is of the flower cluster as it’s blooming, which is why part of it is white. As it fully opens and blooms the petals turn a solid colour. I keep mine very blue because that’s my favourite and right now I have quite a few clusters that are white on the insides and blue at the tips of the petals.

If you want yours purple like the picture then give them a bit of aluminium but don’t mess with the pH and see where that gets you. Purple is the sort of in between colour. I’ve got a little one that looks just like that picture right now and it’s getting another dose of aluminium and low pH water this evening because how dare it not be blue.

Pink defs not my favourite hydrangea but I think she’s lovely. Mine are dry and wind blown and all having a terrible time this year!

You. An soil ph testing kits very cheaply in garden centres, it's useful to know.

We have neutral ph, so most hydrangeas come up white but it's not too difficult to give the coloured ones a boost. Going from highly alkaline to acidic is more work work and I think you have to keep applying the compound that changes the colour.

When I was young my DM loved blue hydrangeas but they were persistently, obstinately pink in our garden.

I thought exactly this. No way is this a deep rich pink. I'd be happy to argue this with them.

I do associate them with the suburban gardens of my childhood, especially the pink ones... I also think of cotoneaster in that category of plants I consider a bit dull.

That said, as a child I thought "Peace" a very boring rose because everyone planted it in their gardens after WW2 and I got sick of the sight of it. When I was a cheapskate and bought the bare-root from Sainsbury for £3 (!!!), I was really looking forward to including it in my garden as a sort of nod to my grandmothers and their rose patches. I was so disappointed when it came out bright yellow, so actually forked out for a proper one from RHS. You definitely get what you pay for! 🤩💗💗💗

I think white hydrangeas are due to the variety, rather than being a function of pH.

re where blue hydrangeas thrive and their popularity - they’ll be found in the same places as the best rhododendron and azaleas but providing successional interest. Rhododendrons are done by now when hydrangeas are starting and they’ll have blooms albeit fading into autumn.