Friday 15 April 2016

How to keep a Geranium indoors with HDYGG?


 I've read and been told many times that Hydrangeas are temporary plants and do not survive winters, however I can't image my Gran bought new shrubs every year. She had a wall of them around her house, both pink and blue. Sadly I can't find any photos that show the marvellous display I was greated with as a small child when I visited her house in the holidays.


Hydrangeas need plenty of light to flower but not direct sunlight, hence why I bought mine with the purpose of growing indoors.

Watering can be a tricky business, they need daily watering but be careful the alkalinity of the water can affect the colour of the blooms and can turn this blue bloom into a pink one. Our local water is desalinated, I'll let you know if there is any effect.

Yellow leaves indicate over watering and if new growth is yellow, it may be caused due to the water being too alkaline.

Also be careful not to water the leaves, water the base of the base. Brown spots on the leaves are a disease called Botrytis that is caused by water standing on the leaves for any length of time, just remove the leaves.

Whilst in bloom a hydrangea should be watered daily, but reduced when it finishes blooming.

I selected a plant that filled the pot with it's greenery and still has a few buds. Hydrangeas best like humid conditions to thrive in, with summer on the way, this should be the perfect weather for the hydrangea. The air con is on daily now till the end of November and set around 25-30c. The hydrangea is by the front door where it gets plenty of natural light during the day and is shielded from the air con unit. If the plant gets too cold, large black patches will appear on the leaves and I'll have to  rethink where it lives in the house.

The back garden as we call it, because it is accessed via the kitchen door, which is actually on the side of the house, is the best place to sit in the evenings as we actually have some shade out there, although it won't be long before it is too hot to be outside full stop.

                 

We have to protect the furniture from the sun and dust during the day from the sun.



We found these basil plants growing outside Dragon Mart, I had brought our basil indoors now, but as there are two plants I'm going to take one back outside and see what happens.


I loved these floral displays inside Dragon Mart, you can buy anything your heart desires from there. On this trip we found a shop selling dental chairs and pink wigs, a dog push chair and if you wanted to open a cinema or a crisp filling production line, you could buy cinema seats and filling machines there, I kid you not.



We've got a few issues with lighting in the house, it's too bright in the main part of the house and there isn't enough light in the bathrooms, plus the bulbs, or globes as they're called here, give off too much heat, sadly all our lights are recessed, so it was just a case of buying new LED bulbs, but I did love the many light shops, you can see from the picture just how big the shops are inside Dragon Mart.


10 comments:

  1. Hydrangeas can be really fussy plants, but they are beautiful so all is forgiven :) Ours doesn't like sun so it lives in the shade — which I think is odd because I see great big hydrangeas growing in gardens with no shade at all.

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    1. i think the wind and the soil type play a huge part of a hydrangeas life

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  2. A dog push chair! Ha! That shop looks huge - if I win the lottery I'm going to have a giant room that's just full of hundreds of lights like that.
    My indoor hydrangea and I didn't get on and I've moved him outside this weekend much to my sadness. Maybe fake flowers are the way to go for me!
    Thanks for joining in again lovely x

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    1. we have chandeliers in our living room, but had to go and buy 2 lamps with LED bulbs as the normal bulbs give off too much heat and the chandeliers have 20 bulbs each, it was just too expensive

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  3. I've got my eye on a blue hydrangea I've seen at one of the local garden centres. I've got to test on our water and rainwater because if I buy it I want it to stay blue. The lighting shop looks fabulous but they must have some good air conditioning.

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    1. oh yes, but even with the air con it was still too hot

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  4. we moved here in october and i can now tell you that hydrangeas do indeed grow back every year. i have watched them slowly push out the old dried out flowers with green leaves and slowly they are blooming again. it has been so amazing to watch. not my own but neighbors

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    1. this one isn't doing so well, if it fades further i'll chance it outside, but it'll be in sand not soil

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  5. Wow - the light shop! I've plans to get one too - I didn't realise they were so fussy though, best I read up on that!! Good luck, will be interested to see if it changes colour

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