Can you make a peat tea? That will produce some nice acidic water.

Don't know about peat but I have some leaf mould I could try.
Thanks for that, Jenny. Lovely to see pics of Hummingbirds;
we don't have them in England but there is a couple of Blue-tits nesting in the corner of my roof.

Household vinegar can be used, too. Distilled (white) vinegar typically has a pH of about 3-4. This can be used safely for nearly all plants (orchids might be an exception). The universal range of dilution is 5-15 ml distilled vinegar per 1000 ml water. Obviously, it is best to have an idea of the starting pH of your water, but with such broad range, you'll be safe as long as you measure conservatively.

I DO know that I used to mix one cup of vinegar to 5 gallons of water to facilitate a pH change from 7.5 to 5.0 to water blueberries. I also used it religiously when mixing various pesticides (insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides), back in the days when I used those kinds of things. The pH of the water makes a huge difference for certain chemicals.

Now, if I could ONLY find that darned dilution chart! It has exact amounts of vinegar needed to bring water down TO a specified pH FROM a specified pH.

Thanks for the mention about my hummers! They are fun to watch and can be quite aggressive for such tiny birds! :-D

Regarding leaf mold - if there are any oak trees near you, those leaves tend to be more acidic and would help. I was also going to recommend vinegar as well, although as noted by rhizo, it can be a bit tricky coming up with the dilution rate that would work with your water and you would need to know what your water pH is. If you can somehow hop a ride to a pet shop, they might sell buffer solutions for raising or lowering the pH for pond water and that is another possibility to use for your mains. If they sell such products, they probably also sell pH test paper or probes so you can measure the water pH.

Jenny.......had to go visit your page to see the hummingbird images, too! What a GREAT set up you have and what a VIEW!!!!!!

Dorie

Hard water doesn't necessarily equal high pH.

Hard water is water that has a high mineral content, usually high levels of Calcium (Ca) and Magnesium (Mg) as well as bicarbonates and sulfates. It is not generally dangerous to safety or health, but it is a pain in the home and in the garden.

For most tasks (including watering the lawn), water would have to be very hard to cause a problem. Unfortunately, water in England is considered 'very hard', with CaCO3 readings of 200mg/L, specially in the eastern cities. Waters around the Gulf States in the U.S. are soft, compared to Texas streams which can get to 1000mg/L.

The best way to soften hard water is using salt in a water softener unit. Hardness caused by bicarbonates can be
removed by boiling the water as evaporated water leaves all the hardness compounds behind. Another alternative is to add powder/liquid water softeners to a hard water container.

You are probably used to seeing that plants grown in in the same pot often show a white crust on the soil surface due to effects of hard water (and fertilizers containing a lot of salts). Since levels of salt build-up impair plant growth, people living in very hard water areas leach/flush out the excess salts by applying a lot of plain water several (1-3?) times a year. For plants that are sensitive to high salt levels, some people repot in fresh new soil once a year.

Finally, you can also use plants which tolerate high salt content in the soil. Your local extension service and/or universities might be able to help with that. See the link below for an example.

Luis

Here is a link that might be useful: Univ of Colorado: Ornamental Plants with High Salt Tolerance

Jean - yeah it does usually mean the result will be a higher pH (ie., in this case > 7, where 7 = neutral). As Luis mentions, "hard" water generally consists of an excess of calcium or magnesium compounds - usually as carbonates. The pH of "hard" water tends to hang around pH 8 and will remain stable in the pH 7 - 8 range. With the presence of bicarbonates, their compounds can act as alkaline buffers (not unlike "baking soda" - sodium bicarbonate (Na2C03) that's used as an antacid), which will resist a pH change to something lower unless an excess of acidic compounds are applied.

Dorie - thanks for the compliments. Am hoping the hummers are happy with the $$$ I've spent on them for plants they supposedly like!