Coffee Grounds & Tea, Great for Hydrangeas

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Coffee Grounds & Tea, Great for Hydrangeas

Submitted by: anonymous 02/15/2009 6:39 AM

I love to garden. I always save coffee grounds and tea bags for mulch around my hydrangeas. It changes the ph of the soil and makes my pink ones blue. It looks great too. I save them all winter long and if a sunny day comes along, I run outside and dump them on top of the ground. Hope this helps!

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Comments:

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Thank you...I'll remember that!

Posted by Patty on February 16, 2009 4:18 PM

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I've got a blue hydrangea -- will it make it deeper blue? TY

Posted by prissysmom on April 02, 2009 8:58 PM

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I am not sure if coffee grounds will make a blue hydrangea bluer, but adding organic matter like coffee grounds, fruit & vegetables peels or grass clippings might turn your Hydrangeas blue b/c it lowers the pH of the soil which is optimal for blue hydrangeas.
Changing the color of hydrangeas can be tricky b/c so many things (like lime from concrete, the pH in your water, the type of fertilizer etc) effect the pH of the soil.
If you really serious about getting bluer hydrangeas, you could try adding a TBSP of aluminum sulfate to a gallon of water & this will lower the pH of the soil.

Posted by grammaj on April 02, 2009 9:29 PM

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I have friends who believe that remaining bit of cold coffee is the best for their house plants.

I always heard that blue was the dominant color of hydrangeas and if you wanted to prevent your pinks from changing to blue, you needed to make sure that the PH in your soil was where it needed to be.

As for coffee grounds, about all I can attest to is if you experience problems with cats using your garden for their potty, try sprinkling those used grounds in there. Cats are pretty finicky about cleanliness and they don't like to get the grounds in their little paws.

Posted by anonymous on April 22, 2009 11:55 PM

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this is what the farmer's almanac has to say about changing the color of hydranges:

"Hydrangea flowers are pink in near-neutral soil and blue in acidic soil. You can change the color of the flowers by changing the pH of the soil. If you have a lot of lime in your soil, the blossoms will be pink. To get blue flowers, you need to lower the pH, which you can do by adding sulfur or peat moss to the soil. Adding tea, which contains tannic acid, also might bring on the blue color."

Posted by KReed on April 29, 2009 9:48 PM

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I like my pink hydrangeas!Especially my Peegee which has been trained into a tree. If you catch the blooms before they too old they dry so nicely with a hint of pink.

Posted by Daylily1940 on May 22, 2009 8:11 PM

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