Michael Dirr from the University of Georgia. Too often hydrangeas leave us only with the hope of next year.įortunately, the world of hydrangeas was forever changed with the introduction of the Endless Summer Hydrangea in 2004 from Bailey Nurseries with the help of Dr. Because they bloom only on last year’s growth, and they often suffer freeze damage, it was common to not have any blooms at all. Unfortunately, traditional hydrangeas often underperform.

If you can legally launch consumer fireworks in your town, please handle them properly.Hydrangeas are known for their old fashion charm with their large mop-type blooms. Fireworks are a lot of fun, but the explosions and burning chemicals are dangerous – even if they do come in colorful packaging. When ignited, the pressure will build and the firework will explode, producing a sudden boom or bang.Īs you watch the fireworks this New Year’s Eve or launch some of your own in the backyard, you’ll now know how they work. Simply put an energetic formula in a confined space with nowhere for the gas to go. The velocity of the gas and size of the opening will vary the pitch and sound of a whistle. If a firework has a small opening for the gas to exit through it will produce a whistling sound.

To add sound effects to fireworks you need a formula that produces a large amount of gas very quickly. The final piece of a good firework is an exciting sound effect. Special formulas and rocket shapes can produce sound effects like whistles. Each of these elements burns at a different speed and in a different way and so produces varying colors and intensities of light. Mixing in various types of charcoal can produce red and orange sparks. Aluminum, magnesium and titanium all produce white sparks. This is hard to achieve because blue light has a shorter wavelength – meaning the distance between the peaks and valleys of the wave of light are very close together.Ĭertain elements produce different colors, but what about sparkles and flashes? To make these effects, various metals can be added to the pyrotechnic formulas. So the wavelength of the “perfect blue” has to be very precise. But if the blue is too light, it appears white. Deep blues are too dark and can’t be seen against the night sky. Making fireworks that produce blues has long been a challenge for fireworks chemists. There are a number of different elements that, when added to a firework and heated, release different wavelengths of light that appear as different colors. If you excite the electrons enough, when they fall back to their normal energy levels they release that excess energy as light. When you heat up any material, what you’re really doing is putting energy into the electrons of that material’s atoms. So where do the colors and bright light come from? If you put very fine black powder powder in a confined space it explodes in a cloud of heat, gas and noise. Dennis Wong/WikimediaCommons, CC BY Different chemicals for different colors Black powder works similarly, and this makes it easy to control how much and how fast energy is released.Īdding different elements to a mixture can produce different colored fireworks. If you toss a handful of sawdust into the flame it burns hot and fast. When you add a large tree limb the flames burn longer and slower. In addition to changing how confined the black powder is, changing the size of the granules of powder can change how fast it burns, too.

In a very confined space, it blasts the components of the firework apart and ignites everything nearby. If there is a small hole for the gas to escape, the reaction launches the firework into the air. This combustion reaction quickly produces a large amount of energy and gas – in other words, an explosion. The sulfur flows over the potassium nitrate and charcoal, which then burn. Once lit with a fuse or spark, the sulfur melts first at 235 F (112.8 C). PericlesofAthens/WikimediaCommonsīlack powder is used to launch the firework in the air as well as ignite and propel the effects – like color – into a pattern in the sky. The oldest recorded recipe for black powder is from A.D.

Color me blue sulfur