How To Plant A Hydrangea Hedge

Hydrangeas have to be one of my absolute favorite flowers!  The blooms are so intricate and beautiful.  Plus one of the favorite things about this plant is the long bloom season!  Filling your yard with hydrangeas, depending on the variety, can give it interest in the fall and winter as well!  I have slowly been adding hydrangeas to my yard any chance I can get!  My yard has Limelight, Little Lime, Bobo and L.A. Dreamin’ Hydrangeas!  When our new neighbors moved in just over a year ago, they expanded their driveway right up to the property line.  My husband and I spent some time thinking over what we could do to soften the transition from our yard to their driveway.  We wanted to be able to converse with the neighbors still, so we thought a short living hedge would be a great fit.  Plus my husband said the magic word, more hydrangeas!  It was actually quite simple to plant, the hardest part is being patient for it to fill in.  If you just want more hydrangeas or if you need a property line solution, here is how to plant a hydrangea hedge.

How To Plant A Hydrangea Hedge

Step 1 Plant Spacing

The key to any beautiful hedge is spacing.  You want to make sure they are far enough from the property line, fence, building or road when you plant them.  A Little Lime Hydrangea grows 3 to 5 feet tall and wide, therefore it might grow two and half feet wide from center in any direction.   We planted our hedge exactly two and half feet off of the property line.  For spacing in-between the plants, if you consider each plant can grow up to 5 feet wide, two and a half feet in each direction.  You would normally space them a minimum of 5 feet apart.  However, I wanted the bushes to overlap in order for it to be a continuous hedge.  To ensure that, we planted them 4 feet apart.

We placed a string two and half feet away from the property line to make sure our hedge was straight.

Then measured and put stakes every 4 feet to mark where to plant the hydrangeas.  We planted 7 Little Limes to go down most of the front property line (in the pictures you may see only 5 plants, that is all the greenhouse had and then we added two more soon after).

Step 2 Planting

Now to get the plants in the ground!  

Make sure the center of your hole is right at your 4 foot mark.  

Then grab some helpers if need be!  My youngest is my little plant lover…we often walk around the yard together, just looking at plants. 

All planted!

Step 3 Dripline

With the location of our hedge in full sun, I was a little nervous about my baby hydrangeas.  Hydrangeas need a lot of water and I wanted to make sure they received enough, especially in the first couple years until they get established.  We created a temporary dripline system and staked it down.  We watered them 4 times a day for 15 minutes each.  With the dripline it just slightly soaks the ground, so make sure you don’t flood them out.  

Interested in adding a dripline system, HERE is how we added one to all our front flowerbeds.

As I mentioned, this was temporary…so we just staked the dripline down along the hedge.  We will be adding woodchips for the hedge this summer.

Step 4 Enjoy Beautiful Blooms

Even though the plants were small the first summer, they bloomed a ton!  In a few years this hedge is going to be absolutely breath taking.  I’ll try to add an additional picture this summer to show how much it’s grown!

If you are considering a hydrangea hedge, go for it!  The blooms are amazing and you get to enjoy them all summer long.  I cut so many fresh flowers to enjoy inside as well! 

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