Soil Acidifier and whats on my plant?!

In addition to the hydrangeas that we put in today, I also added soil acidifier to the azaleas that we put in yesterday. I think the recipe was 1 tablespoon acidifier to 1 gallon water. I ended up using 4 gallons / 8 capfuls to 5 azalea bushes. Following the directions, I watered before and after. Hope that was right. Tomorrow I plan to check the pH and see if it drops. Oh ya, I already lost my pH meter.

So at the right you see our hearty camellia. It shouldn't have lasted. While its brother was doing *ok* two years ago, this thing was brown and brittle. We actually thought it was dead and considered digging it up. It ended up making it through while its brother died. Now it has this stuff on it. Is it rust? If you know, please chime in, and how to fix it. Never mind, no one reads this :)

On another note, we have this poor jasmine vine (I think) next to a downspout. This spout gets about 50% of the water from the front roof. We watched it the other night during a thunder storm, and the base of this plant was completely underwater from the runoff. I'm trying to figure out what to do here - move it - raise it into a box - direct the output of the spout elsewhere - I just don't know. If you look closely at the picture, the plant looks unhealthy. Root rot? I don't know.

Hydrangea Planting

When Jacqueline and I first started working on our yard two years ago, we decided to start with a Gardenia and a couple Camellias. Jacqueline loves the smell of gardenias, and I love the way the old south Camellias look, with their mature, stout trunks. Since then, one of the two camellias died, the gardenia died, and the camellia we expected to die actually lived. No idea what happened.

We chose the old Gardenia location at the front of our house for two new Glory Blue Hydrangeas - 1 gallon pots. Location is just off our porch, about 10 to 12 feet from 4 large hardwoods. I'm worried about them, I know the roots suck a ton of nutrients. Not much we can do though, as our yard is covered in trees. The spot should be good for light, as the sun lands there during the morning, and from midday on, the trees provide shade. After breaking up the top 4 inches of soil, I spread out a big mound of half soil condition, half manure. We planted the root balls so they were even with the surface, and then watered. I hope we can get these guys to last.

Any tips on hydrangeas?

PH Meter

I went to Pikes with the intention of buying a pH test. I was imagining the old litmus paper test - get some moist soil, smear it on the paper, wipe it off, compare it to a chart or something. It turns out they have these fancy electronic ones now. Being a techie, I'm always a sucker for buying the latest gadget, and this was no exception.

I ended up picking up the Digital Soil PH Meter. It works well - feels sturdy, and reads a pH almost instantaneously. I checked the area we just planted the azaleas - 6.5. I think thats too high, I read somewhere that 4-5.5 is ideal. I guess I need to get something to work into the soil, plus some pine bark mulch or pine needles to mulch with. I found out that hardwood bark mulch (which we used last year) raises the pH. No wonder the existing Azalea lost its color and looked sick. Apparently at a high pH it can't pull nutrients from the ground.

I also bought some potting soil for some Camellia cuttings - we're going to try to root them. Got stimulator for them too. I'm not expecting too much from that experiment, but wouldn't it be cool to wind up with 3-4 baby Camelias?

First Post

So Jacqueline and I started our third spring together. Our third year of planting, arguing about what should go where, how this and that should work or look, and our third year of dead bushes. So far in three years, we have killed a Gardenia, a Camellia, 2 Azaleas, a bunch of who knows what kinds of annuals, and I don't know what else.

Today we just planted 4 Hino Crimson Azaleas in the front yard by the walk. They have a nice deep green foliage and dark purple to red flowers. There is already a leftover white azalea of some sort next to them - a leftover from a group of three, two of which died when we moved in. We compromised on breaking up the small bed so the white azalea doesn't look out of place. Hopefully it works, otherwise I lose yet another foothold against my designerly superior wife.

We first pulled all the dead grass out of the bed - a bunch of seeds washed down from the yard last year. Then we busted it up with a hoe and one of those four pronged earth churn thingies. After that, we mixed up a batch of 1/3 bed dirt, 1/3 soil conditioner, and 1/3 cow manure. The nice lady at Home Depot recommended this mix, although she said "your clay" in place of our bed dirt. Hopefully its the same thing.

We planted the azaleas with the root balls approximately 1"-2" above the surface. My designer wife said it looked funny and complained, but alas I prevailed. I guess the idea is that the rootball needs to breath, so it needs to be uncovered. I've heard of making a ridged wall around the planting to direct water to the plant - we didn't do that this time.

The ground here gets a little dry at one end, being so close to the house. I guess we'll need to keep an eye on the water.

Other stuff to do this week: mulch the bed, add some smaller perennials and annuals around it, plant several 1 gallon baby azaleas, a 3g camellia, 2 blueberry bushes, and 2 hydrangeas.

Happy gardening!