Soils and flower color
Jane McGary (Tue, 12 May 2015 08:21:14 PDT)

Moving many mature plants from one garden to another three and one-half
years ago seems to have altered the flower color in some. Soil in the
first garden is very well drained. rocky, volcanic "shot clay" with
high iron and potassium levels. That in the new garden is fairly heavy
clay (also of volcanic origin but at lower elevation), now well amended
with organic matter, with none of the red color seen in the former. Two
species of Paeonia, both grown from wild-collected seed in the
mid-1990s, are particularly different. Paeonia mlokosewitschii was cream
with a pink flush, mostly from pink veins; now it is clear pale yellow.
Paeonia officinalis was a beautiful blood-red; now I would call it
rose-red, a less striking color.
Have you noticed other geophytes that vary in flower color in different
soils?

Jane McGary
Portland, Oregon, USA