The Solution to Most of Life's Problems: Limelight Hydrangea

I'll take whatever help I can get, 3 watered is better than none!

I've lived in this house for just over a year and I'm just starting to figure out what I want to do with it. It's a large, open backyard with little practical application, other than a soccer field. So I'm working to make it more live-able by breaking it down into spaces we can actually use, like a vegetable garden, a patio area and a place for the kidlet to wreck/play. I'm starting with areas that really bug me instead of areas that have me inspired. Which is SO HARD but I think I'll have more fun working on the fun and inspiring things once I've given myself the gift of seriously beautiful privacy.

My husband jokes that we have a driveway with a house on it. It's so true, we have a giant driveway. I bet we could park 25+ cars on it, if we packed them in like dominoes. Still, it's a weird feature to inherit in a house. Over this last year I realized that I hate the way the blacktop just ends and the yard begins- and just as much I hate how cars driving by get an eyeful of my gardener's bottom in the air when I'm working in the backyard. In trying to fix that "openness" I've cluttered the area with a ton of containers, some straw-bale gardening experiments and... you name it. Now it just looks cluttered and still like a gaping hole. I had the realization that I need a "door" to my backyard, because if there's anything in this world I believe in, it's that the backyard is your own secret garden while the front yard is everybody's business.

So how could I go about building a door to my backyard? I'd have to start with some walls, right? And what better to create some killer hedges than my ol' pal, 'Limelight' Hydrangea  . If you're Hydrangea-phobic (and I don't blame you!) have no fear of Limelight. It's tolerant of pretty much any situation, sun or shade, blooms on new wood (not like most old-fashioned hydrangeas) and doesn't ever flop over. It's seriously my #1 desert island plant pick.

Understanding that Limelight Hydrangea will get BIG- as in 6' tall and 8' wide (just like me. I kid.) I had to decide how to place them for maximum instant gratification vs. minimum maintenance. I decided on placing them 4' apart and 4 feet away from the edge of the driveway, with a 10' "gate" in between that even when they fill in, the lawnmower can fit though.

As the hedge grows, I'll only prune it in late winter (I think we call that March in Chicago!) to create a wall. Pruning it at the right time of year ensures I'll have a gazillion flowers in summer!

Until they fill in and blur the line between my driveway and the yard, I plan on putting a row of 'Desert Plains' Pennisetum in front of the Hydrangeas. They are the perfect size, a great texture to mix in with the Limelights and I can not resist adding a little extra fall color to the yard. As the Hydrangeas grow up, I am 100% sure that I'll find someplace to relocate the grasses to. And eventually, I'll find or make a kickin' arch to go over the "door". I'm in no rush.

Heck, it's taken me a year to get this far...