Hydrangea

I love the hydrangea.  The flowers are large and full of colour, whatever colour they turn out to be.  The are called 'ortansia' here which is a beautiful name for them.

I once had a blue hydrangea in the garden which was flourishing till one of our neighbours walked past and put the evil eye on it.  She admired the flower without 'ftoo-tooing' it and told me I was very lucky to have it survive because they only did well growing in pots.  A  fatal pronouncement.  It withered away and by the next summer was dead.

Every hydrangea I have has turned out to be pink even though one of them started out blue.  I now plant them in pots of course.  No risk taking with the new ones.  

I spent time in the winter looking at videos on Youtube finding out how to keep or turn hydrangeas blue.  It is all to do with the Ph of the soil.  Coffee grounds and eggshells seemed to be the clue to establishing the right Ph for blue hydrangeas though it did say it would take time for the colour to change.  

We drink filter coffee so all the grounds went around the plants.

This is the largest one in a huge pot which is actually half a wooden wine barrel.  At the moment it is still pink but still getting doses of coffee grounds and eggshells

The plant in the smaller clay pot though has turned out to have  lilac/purple flowers.  I'm quite chuffed with this result!

I also studied tomato growing.  My plants are usually big and healthy but with few tomatoes.  This year I hope for more fruit than foliage.  I learnt how to prune the tomatoes and they also have had lashings of coffee grounds, eggshell milkshakes and goat droppings.   The cherry tomato has produced 4 tomatoes and is only 6 inches high.  The other plants have flowers and I see 2 tomatoes forming.  Ftoo-ftoo.  I should plant some garlic around them to keep off the evil eye too.  Hopefully this year we'll be making greek salads with our own tomatoes.