Those are lovely, anenemity. When they are fully grown, they will make quite a statement there by your door and steps.

My experience with hydrangeas is that an occasional watering when they are dry (and during the first few weeks after they are planted) is about all that is required.

I don't know if they actually "need" mulch around them, but they will look more "dressed up" if you do add it, and besides mulch helps conserve the moisture so that you don't need to water as much.

Be sure to take pics when they mature. We'd love to see them all grown up.

Kate

When you have the time, I think you'll find the mulch helpful. It will cover weed seeds and supress germination of those, cool your hydrangeas roots and conserve moisture so you aren't watering quite as often.

Don't use landscape fabric though (creates more problems than it solves), just reapply mulch as needed.

Congratulations on your lovely hydrangeas. They won't need fertilizer, but they will need mulch. Also, I think they're planted too close to the house. It looks like there's less than a foot between the plants and the house. That's too close. They should come out at least another foot (if not more).

Anenemity,

Your plants look lovely. I agree they will benefit from mulching.

I have a curved horseshoe-shaped hedge of h.'Homigo' - 8 plants. We top dress every spring with 4-6" of 50/50 leaf mould & compost. Our plants have thrived with this treatment & have never required extra water after getting settled in their first couple seasons.

However, I also agree with mehearty...they are planted WAY to close to the house. Ours were planted as 6" rooted cuttings from QVC as the Today's Special Value. They are now 5' tall & 5' wide! Every year, we cut wayward lower branches back to the trunk to keep them at that size or they would be 6-7' wide!

Seriously, I strongly recommend replanting at LEAST 4' from your foundation and 5' would be better (allowing room for house maintenance). They'll look a bit silly the first couple seasons while they're busy getting a root system established but after that happens top growth will be rapid.

Mine looked downright stupid as 6" cuttings planted 5' on center (8 plants) in an arch smack in the middle of our property! But now, they are traffic stopping. They are fronted with simple Black-eyed Susans. The blue hydrangeas in back of the Susans is positively striking & so EASY to maintain. You'll love those 'Homigo' plants...just get them out away from your foundation.

/tricia

I'll see about moving them back from the house a bit. I put them about 18" from the wall based on the tag that said they'd get between 3'-4' wide. I hope they get nice and big like yours, Tricia! I've never grown hydrangeas before so don't know what to expect. They're not really against the house - that's a porch wall with crawl space underneath (but other than a 6" grate on the ends is inaccessible) - so access to that part of the wall is not crucial. But if it's better for the plant, they'll get shifted forward by a couple of feet as soon as I've got the time! Too bad I already mulched...

anenemity, I really can't imagine h. 'Homigo' being 18" from a wall/fence of any sort without being smooshed. Sorry. It's a bushy shrub with large leaves & many large flowers. I planted 6" rooted cuttings & they were larger than yours are now at the end of their first season. I'm trying to get a picture to you & am so frustrated. I use picturetrail & I keep getting a "Rejected" message when I paste the link into GW...have no idea why? You don't show an email address through GW so can't get one to you that way either. :(

I live on a small penninsula jutting into Mystic Harbor. Hydrangeas are known for loving salt air & coastal weather. Maybe, mine are just happy campers, therefore, larger than "normal"? All I know is that those flowers are at or above my nose & I'm 5'4". They are as wide (or wider) than they are tall. Our hedge was planted in 2004 so this is their 7th season but they reached this height in their 3rd or 4th year.

I know it's a pain to move them. :( Ultimately, you both will be happier though. :) I don't think it will "hurt" the shrubs to stay where they are...they just won't look as nice as their potential allows.

Oh, also...I've never winter protected our hedge. It's right out there exposed to every Nor'easter that comes our way. I'm handicapped & don't have the ability to coddle my plants so they've got to perform. If h. 'Homigo' didn't perform...it would have been compost years ago! lol Mine are just starting to show blue (we have acid soil)...about 3 weeks later than Nikko.

/tricia

Actually, it would be very easy to pull back the mulch and dig up the plants, moving them out at least a couple more feet. It might also be easier on the plant if you do it now. If you wait until it settles in and starts developing its root system, you might be disturbing if more than if you just moved it now. When you dig the hole, just fill it with the amended soil from the old hole, and fill the old hole with the unamended dirt from the new hole.

Good luck--looking forward to pics of your mature hydrangeas.

Kate

I was going to say that there's probably a big difference between Tricia's zone 7 coastal and the OP's zone 6 Ohio. I can't imagine the latter performing as well as the former (but then again Ostrich had great success).

Anemenity, I can't read your entire posts because the pics are so large that the type goes way off the page, and it's frustrating scrolling back and forth. It makes the whole thread read that way. It's probably a good idea to figure a way to reduce pics before posting so you can get more responses. And welcome to Murphy's Law of Gardening. As soon as you put down mulch, you're going to find a reason to move plants. =) I usually mulch in June after most things are planted. With something like a hydrangea, I'll just mulch with some old oak leaves until I get the real mulch in the bed. I just leave the oak leaves under the mulch for extra nutrients.

Mehearty, I know the size of the pics is frustrating. I upload them to blogger and then imbed the image source from that. I'll have to fool around with my blogger settings and see what I can do.

I'm actually a little confused as to what my zone is. On a couple of "zone lookup" sites my zip code comes up 5b. The gardenweb zone finder gives me zone 6, but if I look at one of the high-res maps (didn't they just publish new, adjusted zones?), I'm zone 7! Talk about conflicting information. It's one reason I've been so hesitant to get things planted. I'm nestled in the Ohio River valley, which is a little better winter-protected than areas less than an hour away.

Tricia - I've tried to update my GardenWeb profile many times to include my email address, but I get an error whenever I submit. I'd definitely be interested in seeing your plants, though! My email is [my GW username] at gmail dot com.

Dublinbay - I too was thinking that doing it now would be better on the plant - getting all the transplant shock done in one season rather than delaying the inevitable.

Thanks again to all for your help!

If you are going to move them more to the front make sure that you move the one next to stairs more to the left as well. They look beautiful!