General Gardening

Re: cold tea

Zetaearthling — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 10:20:56 GMT

Hi courierdude. I read in my gardening/botany books that a acidic soil allows the uptake of aluminium to increase turning the flowers blue from pink. I would presume that adding tea to the soil will increase the acidity of the soil (which it always does) thus keeping the flowers blue. I have never tried this but it will make an interesting experiment.

Re: cold tea

courierdude — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 13:31:08 GMT

thought it was aluminium that you added to soil to make hydrangeas blue?

Re: cold tea

Zetaearthling — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 08:28:34 GMT

You mean blue flowers? I would not give too much tea during later stages of flowering as too much nitrogen can reduce the number of blue flowers, increasing leaf growth instead.

Re: cold tea

honeybunny — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 22:43:11 GMT

thats great i'll start doing it again so, happy days. hey would this be helpful in persuading my lacecap hydrangia to stay blue?

Re: cold tea

Zetaearthling — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 09:41:23 GMT

Yes, but don't over do it. Tea contains nitrogen that is good for plants but too much can cause the soil to become too acidic.

Re: cold tea

honeybunny — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 21:02:12 GMT

i often used to make tea for my potted plants using the old spent teabags in the watering can, they got a soaking in it quite regularly and i must admit the plants did seem nice and healthy but then i read somewhere it can make the soil acidic! so i stopped for fear of doing more harm than good, is this not the case then?

Re: cold tea

courierdude — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 21:17:27 GMT

only when served with a biscuit on the saucer .. ) some of my plants much prefer a cup of coffee now and then.

Re: cold tea

headfullofbees — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:18:22 GMT

Roses love it, and I use it around my fruit trees.

I take it you mean leftovers in the pot?

cold tea

Lynnoot — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:03:54 GMT

Does anyone know if you can use cold tea to water plants in the garden?