One-year journey of growing Endless Summer hydrangeas: even common varieties can be grown to crazy perfection

It's hydrangea season lately, and my whole social feed is full of hydrangeas - and of course I'm no exception~

At the time, because I was lazy and didn't want to put effort into mixing and matching plants, I just planted all Endless Summer. Among all hydrangea varieties, Endless Summer is undoubtedly the one that produces results fastest, blooms the most, and is the most low-maintenance.

Sure enough, those few tiny seedlings from last year exploded into a full display in just one year. For someone like me who doesn't chase new varieties, I have a special love for this wildly prolific common variety~

But every time I post on my social feed, someone always asks how to turn hydrangeas blue?

Some gardening friends say they've tried ferrous sulfate, and also tried watering with vinegar mixed in water, but nothing worked - the flowers still came out pink. There are even those who stick nails into the edge of the pot and wait for them to rust. There really are so many methods for adjusting soil!

But I haven't used any of these, so I'm not quite sure how effective they actually are.

Let me just talk about the blueing process for my patch of Endless Summer!

It's very simple - just buy a blueing agent, but of course you need to buy it from a reliable shop. If you get a fake one, it probably won't do anything.

I bought mine from Old Wang who loves growing flowers. Old Wang is an old friend of mine, and I trust the products in his shop. It's the bottle in the middle of the picture below:

I'm pretty casual with the dosage. For potted plants, a pot around 2 gallons gets about two bottle caps' worth, roughly 4-5 grams. Because I'm too lazy, I just sprinkle it directly on the surface of the pot - I can't even be bothered to bury it in - and then just water as usual~

I usually do this in early spring in March, when the hydrangeas start to sprout. For this whole patch of hydrangeas, bottle caps definitely wouldn't be enough, so I just pour it into my hand and sprinkle a handful next to each one~

Then when the hydrangeas color up, they're a perfect blue. Isn't it simple?

Are you also curious about how many hydrangeas I've planted in this flower bed and how long they've been growing?

Let me just write about it all together!

This patch was planted in early April 2017 - six Endless Summer seedlings bought from Old Wang's shop, 9.9 yuan each. For nine yuan ninety, you can't lose, and you can't be fooled!

When they arrived, they already had flower buds, so I could immediately verify their identity, but the color still needed to be adjusted by me. So I opened the hydrangea blueing agent that came in the same package, sprinkled a handful next to each one, and then laid a layer of pine bark mulch on top. If you look closely at the soil surface, you can tell~

By the end of May, they had bloomed into a sea of blue~

Saying "a sea of blue" is a bit of an exaggeration, but to produce this many blue flowers in just one month - only hydrangeas can do that!

So! Friends who like hydrangeas can buy small-to-medium seedlings in March or April. If you have money, you can buy large plants directly - you'll have flowers right away. After the flowers finish, cut them off and place the plant in a cool, ventilated spot, water occasionally, grow for a year and the next year it'll be a big clump again. The only prerequisite is: when the leaves drop in winter, don't mistake them for dead branches and throw them away.

The reason I like the Endless Summer variety is that it blooms on both new and old branches, and it keeps blooming into late autumn. These are flowers from my Endless Summer in August - but at this time they don't bloom as explosively as in spring, just sporadic blooms.

You can see it's grown much more lush than when it first arrived. Even without flowers, this lush state will persist until the coldest time of winter.

As I mentioned earlier, hydrangeas drop their leaves in winter. Let's fast-forward to January 2018, the coldest month of the year in Jiangxi, the month for heavy pruning of roses, and also the month when hydrangea leaves have all fallen. So every January, my garden is a bleak sight!

But this stage isn't too hard to endure. When warm spring comes in March, the hydrangeas will start sprouting new shoots again, and the cycle repeats, blooming in May.

Similarly, it's also at this time that those who want blue flowers can use the blueing agent.

By May of this year, the second year's hydrangea flowers bloomed, and only then did it somewhat match what I wanted. To make it even better, I'll have to wait until next year!

But next year I won't adjust the color. Having seen so much blue, sometimes I miss pink.

The most beautiful time of the year is this season. Enjoy it to the fullest!

Since this flower bed is right next to the road, even though there's a fence all around, it still can't stop the wandering hands reaching in to pick flowers!

These past few days, some clueless students have stolen and picked many flowers. At night I even caught two schoolgirls, who were shouting while stealing: "I like purple ones, pick me the purple one~"

When I caught them, they ran off as fast as they could. Seems they know it's wrong to steal other people's flowers, but they just can't control their hands. Worrying lack of manners!

It all happened in just two or three days. Look at the comparison between three days ago and three days after - how many were picked? It really hurts!

(Three days ago)

(Three days later)

I posted about it on my social feed to vent. Most gardening friends felt the same heartache as me. A few others advised me to be more magnanimous, saying just treat it as sharing!

Ha, no thanks! If I'm going to share, I'll share with my own family, friends, and people I'm willing to give to. At the very least, I could keep them to arrange flowers for myself, right?

I painstakingly raised them from seedlings, and it wasn't so that someone could secretly pick them before I even got a look. This isn't sharing - it's outright robbery.

Some people even blamed me for planting them near the road, saying that since I planted them by the road, I should be mentally prepared for people picking the flowers.

That's natural - I was mentally prepared from the start. But having them picked bare still hurts, and cursing a few times is just out of anger.

To put it plainly, I'm mentally prepared that when they bloom, someone might pick them. But if you're going to steal someone else's flowers, you should also be mentally prepared to get caught and scolded!

Alright, after venting, life must go on. I can't let these annoying things keep affecting my mood!

In the evening, I cut a few stems myself to put in a vase. When I cut them myself, I always choose the inconspicuous ones in the corners and the ones about to finish blooming. I can't bear to waste them carelessly - I want to keep this beauty for a few more days. Even just a few more days of looking at them is worth it!

Finally, let me share some tips for pruning hydrangeas. I hope they're useful to you:

1. Hydrangeas look best short and sturdy. If the branches are too long, the large flowers will weigh them down and bend them, making them look bad. Generally in this case, counting from the bottom up, leaving two nodes is enough. After the flowering period, you can prune this way.

2. September to October is when the flower buds form. During this period, do not prune.

3. If you want your hydrangea to grow taller, then only cut off the flower heads that have finished blooming. For branches that are bent and deformed, leave three nodes. Don't cut the ones that haven't bloomed. After cutting off thin, weak branches, you can prune this way every year after flowering, and it will grow very tall quickly. If you think a branch is too long, you can also cut off half of it, reasonably adjusting the distribution of branches, and eventually prune it into the shape of a large flower ball.

4. Hydrangeas bloom on last year's old branches. The current year's new branches don't bloom - except for Endless Summer. So if you're going to prune, do it after the current year's flowering season. Never prune in spring! Otherwise, the new branches that grow after pruning won't bloom, and the flower count will be very low.

5. If you don't know how to prune, then don't cut it. Either way, it will still bloom in spring and summer the following year.

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