melaroma - if you don't do anything but water in alkalinic soil like mine ~ ES should be pink. I serve mine a stiff grande Starbucks to give me the dish of Jordan Almond look.

Here is a link that might be useful: 2 ES served Coffee in AM

BTW last season I only served Iowa tap & both were nothing but pink my 2 Nikkos as well (album posted ES1 got coffee & ES2 plain tap).

But will just watering it give me a soft baby pink? Lovely pics btw!

Hello melaroma. Your soil as well as your water can be either acidic, near neutral or alkaline so get a soil pH kit to determine what your soil pH is like and take appropriate action.

A brand new plant whose roots only grow in the potting soil in which it came wil take a year or so to grow outside of this area and into your garden's soil. In the meantime, the bloom color will be mostly dictated by the potting soil. After this transition period, use a soil pH kit to tweak the soil. Amend the soil with garden lime to make it more alkaline and more pink. But apply it accoding to the label directions and keep an eye for iron chlorosis symptoms.

My soil and my water here are both alkaline. If I wanted to get blues, I would have to keep this in consideration when watering.

Your current purplish color is close to the point of neutrality so add some more garden lime to make it pink.

Good AM Luis ~ As always, you give us well researched advices/suggestions & enlightenments & speaking for myself ~ truly appreciate!

Thanks Luis! Both the water and soil here are alkaline. My oldest ES is 3 years old and the other one is two. I had been applying sulfur to try to get them to flower blue so that might be why they were purple. I did not add any this last fall nor have I applied any this year. Hopefully that will be long enough for them to flower completely pink.