Soil additive for Columbines

[jumpjack]

We had some beautiful blue columbines start from seeds in an out of the way spot near our house. We wanted to move them to our other yellow columbines to create additional color in our columbine patch. Lo and behold the blue columbines started blooming yellow. What is the soil additive which caused them to bloom blue in one spot and change to yellow when moved??? Can anyone tell us how to amend the soil and get our pretty blue columbines back? (Note: we are in the southern New Mexico mountains at 7,000 feet and have a big crop of yellow columbines growing in your courtyard . . . we just want some variety!) Thanks for any help. Jack and Barbara

[CaptainCompostAL]

Sounds like a soil pH issue. Some flowering plants can actually change their coloring scheme on flower petals, based on the balance of the calcium, sulfur, and magnesium in your soil and compost.

It's not really a big problem, or big deal, just a matter of preference or taste. You might want to add a little lime to raise the native soil pH in that spot, or add some sulfur to low the native soil pH in that soil, to see what happens.

Or just call your local county extension guys to get a better expert opinion on that subject.

Hope this helps.

[Leslie Finical Halleck]

jumpjack wrote: We had some beautiful blue columbines start from seeds in an out of the way spot near our house. We wanted to move them to our other yellow columbines to create additional color in our columbine patch. Lo and behold the blue columbines started blooming yellow. What is the soil additive which caused them to bloom blue in one spot and change to yellow when moved??? Can anyone tell us how to amend the soil and get our pretty blue columbines back? (Note: we are in the southern New Mexico mountains at 7,000 feet and have a big crop of yellow columbines growing in your courtyard . . . we just want some variety!) Thanks for any help. Jack and Barbara

Jumpjack,
Well, I seriously doubt that the flower color actually changed that drastically on the same plants. With Columbine, and many other plants, temperature can drastically impact flower color/intestity (cooler temps = deeper color and larger blooms, warmer temps = paler color and smaller blooms). But you won't get a blue columbine that turns into a yellow one. And, soil conditions won't cause a total color change in columbine, as it sometimes can with hydrangea.

There are a few different possibilites:

Columbine can reseed all over the place, so you may have had seeds from your yellow columbine sprout up with your blues. The yellow species (A. chrysantha, or A. longissima) are exeptionally hardy and prolific, so this is a very likely scenario. Also, columbine cross pollinate very easily, so what you may have are some hybrids between the two. The yellow charactaristics will typically dominate.

OR, your original blue columbine were hybrid cultivars to begin with (as are most of the very large flowering columbine) and their resulting seedlings have reverted to the characteristics of the "parent" plants, which is very common.

OR, there were seedlings of other varieties mixed into the original pots of your blue when you purchased them. The very large flowering hybrid columbine tend to be the ones that die out faster than the species. So what you are now left with are the "invaders."

I don't know what your soil is like there, but columbine don't tolerate wet feet very well. The better the drainage, the longer lived your original plant will be. With poor drainage, you can expect your columbine to live a couple of years before dying out - but you will be left with new seedlings that will take their place. Just don't expect seedlings from a hybrid plant to look like the original one you purchased.

You may just need to by some new blue plants to replace your old ones. I would suggest planting A. cearulea, as this is a straight species with a meduim blue flower.