Decorating with Hydrangeas

The color of the hydrangea flower is typically determined by the pH level of the soil. The more acidic the more blue the flower will be. The more alkaline, the more pink the flower will be.

I absolutely love Hydrangeas. My love for them comes from a really long story … all good things come from really long stories, right?

When my husband and I were fresh out of college (then financé), we moved 1,000 miles away from home to accept a job he had been offered in southern Georgia. I remember being excited beyond belief. I’ve always been the type of person who wanted to get out and move away (hence going to college 2 states over, 5 hours away)…not really for any real reason, as growing up near Chicago certainly offered lots of opportunities, but I just wanted to explore!

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So…we packed our bags and headed south…well, not really. We were fortunate to have been provided movers by the company, so, they packed our bags and hauled all of our stuff!

We started off renting a three bedroom house on a large 1 acre fenced in lot – so our 2 large dogs would have space and our families could come visit – we’ve always lived a grown up life, maybe when I’m old, I’ll finally act like a 20’s something kid, lol!

It was a really cute PINK house 🙂

It was short lived because I had a rude awakening to life. I learned about cockroaches. I learned that in the south, especially the deep south, which is where we lived, cockroaches were not necessarily a sign of being “dirty people”. They were just apart of the environment. Gag!!!!

So, as a freshly turned 23 year old married girl, I put my foot down and said we had to buy a house….because of course that would solve everything, haha!

We started looking at houses, lots of them, and finally found a beautiful custom built, 14 year old home on 2 sprawling acres with woods in the backyard and the most beautiful loooong, tree lined driveway that reminded me of the Sound of Music…just on a much smaller scale! It was a dream come true to me. However, my smart husband had his hesitations because he knew right away that I/we would want to change things. So he really drug his feet/tried to talk me out of it.

Well…on Valentine’s Day 2007, he surprised me with an accepted offer on the house of my dreams. I had no idea he had put in an offer, I was totally shocked and ecstatic!

Of course, we got right to work and renovated our very first home (and kitchen) … which only turned into this becoming a lifelong hobby that we’ve now embarked on with three more houses (we’re nuts!)

One of our projects was adding landscaping to the front of our home. We had a huge front porch (that thing was so deep, it’s the kind of porches that make you wish every house had a porch!) and it needed to be “glamified” with flowers and landscaping pavers.

We sculpted landscape pavers and stacked them 3 rows high, into curved beds on either side of the steps. We planted a ton of Hydrangeas and other plants! Little did we know, that if you live in south Georgia, you need to water your Hydrangeas a billion times per day or they droop and look pathetic! hahaha

At our next two houses, we did a TON of landscaping, but we did not plant any more Hydrangeas because of the extreme southern heat. So when we bought house #4 in Wisconsin, I was so pleasantly surprised to see what plants came up in the spring (because we bought the house in the cold of January!) There are two Hydrangea plants that are the size of a school bus! Ok, not really, but close!

I’m not sure how long they have been planted in our yard, but they are most massive Hydrangeas I’ve ever paid any attention to!

This was just a regular sized flower…there are some that were much more massive, but trying to take a photo with my camera and leaning over the flowers, was a bit challenging!

Unfortunately they are so huge that they fall over because the stems can’t hold up the massive flowers! So…in an effort to help the plants out, I decided to cut some off of the very bottoms that were touching the ground, and make a pretty bouquet.

I use these hand pruners and love them! I did a lot of research and asking on a garden group I’m apart of, before ordering them. So far, I’ve had them for 1 year and am still very pleased!

How To Decorate with Hydrangeas

Hydrangeas are such a beautiful flower that they really don’t need any other flowers to compliment them. They can stop the show all by themselves!

• Cut the flower’s stem long
• Trim off any lower leaves
• Fill a vase with room temperature water and add fresh clippings
• Add extra greenery around the bottom of the hydrangea flowers with excess hydrangea leaves

Hydrangea pH Color Chart

I truly just love the look of Hydrangea flowers, especially when they are various colors. In Georgia, ours were purple and blue. Here in Wisconsin, they are white. Definitely a tad boring, but the colors of Hydrangeas change due to the pH levels in the soil.

4.5 pH level (more acidic) = deep blue. 7.0 pH (more alkaline) = deep pink.

Do you have hydrangeas in your garden? If so, what color are they? Tell me in the comments!

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