I have fertilised it with cow manure and fish, blood and bone and watered it well.

==>> thats a lot of cure for an unknown problem ... on top of a major transplant this spring ...

where are you.. big city name.. and whats the weather been since the transplant.. were they already leafed out.. or still dormant when moved ...was it a major move.. or just perhaps.. across town???

one thing for sure.. it is severely stressed from the move ... and it needs time to recover from that .. before we start fixing other problems .. im wondering about how fast things can really happen if there are soil deficiencies .... these type of things usually dont show up in days or weeks ...

did you bare root it.. or take some of the old soil with it ...

ken

Hi Ken,

First off, thank you for your reply. To answer your questions I am actually based in Norway, southern coast but that might not tell you anything :)

What happened was I had one large hydrangea at the old house and it was doing really well. I dug it up with as much soil as I could and moved it to the new garden, a 15 minute drive down the road. At the same time I split it to get two hydrangeas (the original is still pretty big and the part I took off it is pretty small). The third I bought at a garden centre so it was in a pot, never been in the ground.

The weather has actually been fairly decent since I planted them, mild and sunny for the most part. They were dormant-ish when I moved them (they had small buds emerging but no leaves).

just can't understand why they all look the same, when one was in a pot to begin with and the other two in the ground. I also want to point out that I've planted a mock orange about a metre away from where the hydrangeas are and it is doing really well, no sign of yellow, sickly leaves. So I am baffled.... In between the hydrangeas I have some (at the moment small) ammi majus, and they also are bright green in colour.

I'm just unsure whether to leave the hydrangeas in and hope for the best or dig them up and put them in pots until they recover. Or cut them all the way down where they are planted?

A high pH does not indicate an acidic soil.....quite the opposite!! The lower the pH, the more acidic the soil.

That does look like a nutrient deficiency. But beyond just a simple chlorosis. I'd try some fast acting nitrogen to see if that greens things up. If nothing else available, you can try some diluted urine (need to move beyond the yuck factor :-))

Sorry, I meant the pH showed that it was very acidic. The actual pH value was low. The test I took had a scale of 4 to 7, 4 being very acidic, 5 acidic, 6 somewhat acidic and 7 alkaline. Mine came out at 5. But you're right, there is something the hydrangea isn't responding well to, considering I have plants in the same area and they are fine. I might just save my urine next time (oh the things we do for plants!).... Yuk, but if it works...