Experience has taught me to respect the suggestions given by growers on light conditions. I had an endless summer planted in full sun and the results were stunted growth and shriveled flowers. When I moved it to a part sun location it rebounded nicely. I can assume the same would happen with limelight in that you would have stunted growth and not as many flowers. I planted blackeye susans in my flower bed not paying attention to sun exposure (they get full sun) and half my bed bloomed and the other half did not.

DDhydrangea, thank you for your quick reply. Actually, I made a mistake when I said I wanted to plant Limelight on the northeast corner of my house. What I meant to say, was on the Northwest corner.
I want lots of blooms so I won't plant it there if all I get are leaves and very few blooms. Thanks again.

Cadence, the northwest corner of your house should receive considerable afternoon sun. And that should be fine for any paniculata. While they are the most sun tolerant of the hydrangea species, they will grow (and flower) quite happily in less than full sun conditions.

DDhydrangea, not that it matters, but I am confused by your remark about the blackeyed Susans............:-) Rudbeckias are full sun (6+ hours) plants, so I wonder why a full sun setting proved not to their liking. Could something else be going on?

Well it's good to know I was wrong about paniculatas at least.....

Gardengal, I have a full sun flower bed in my back yard limelights in the middle and blackeyed susans on the ends with some ornamental grass. The sun comes in on a slant because of the house and while most of the bed gets sun all day the side closest to the house ( a small corner) gets only 2-3hrs of sun a day. And my susans are planted right in that spot. So the ones on the right that are getting full sun bloomed nicely and doubled in size and the ones closest to the house are just leafy.

My husband is laughing his head off right now because I'm not getting my planting location right in my posts.
Okay, I want to plant my new limelight hydrangea in the NE CORNER of my house. It receives a couple of hours of morning sun and some late afternoon shade. Part of my deck canopy is giving a little shade in that corner. Would that work for my Limelight Hydrangea and will it still get lots of blooms? I'm not clicking submit until I read this 3x's. lol

It is confusing! Lol

Fertilizer should aid in growth also. Plants seem to somewhat favor *almost* anything but a combination of deep shade with little moisture. With that, almost nothing will grow there.

I'm not too fussy about Rudbeckias for starters. I took 2 small seedlings from my neighbor's that landed along the fenceline, and in 2 years the clumps have grown to 4x4'! For what it's worth, you might as well plant them in shade as I find myself wanting to cut out sections that have encroached upon their own neighbors.

I decided to get a Limelight tree yesterday, as I could not turn away from the head-sized blooms that are still taking shape. These do make an especially attractive tree since the stems begin to grow out from the 90-degree parent stem, then curve straight up 90 degrees themselves, making for a wonderful overall structure.

The thing I'm really wondering about is how best to prune paniculatas in order to get those watermelon-sized blooms on thick new wood. Most say hard-pruning works best? I guess it would since I suppose you won't get much off thin stems if they happen to not thicken as they age.

I'm in PA and last year at the end of Oct. we had a freak snow storm. The snow was very heavy, trees went down, branches fell and my 4 year old limelight bush split! I decided to hard prune my limelights so they would make it through winter. Cut them down from 6ft to around 4ft. Well they grew back this year with a vengeance and had the nerve to sprout an extra foot at 7ft tall. They are not done blooming yet so I can't vouch for the size of the blooms but there are just as many as last summer.

Yeah I remember that one... I got 4 inches on 10/28! Luckily it melted in a few hours. Just the way things are around here. My arborvitae is held together by zip ties... so next blizzard we get, the whole thing is coming down and not just part of it! Lol

Springwood_Gardens is right. I have about (4) 4-5 year old limelights and about (6) less than 2 years so I'll share what I have learned.
They do best in full sun but also tolerate dappled sun. Hard pruning yields long stems topped with huge blooms (said in my best NJ accent). Less pruning yields more but smaller blooms. If you want your young limelights to really take off, fertilize once a month until July (some say August but that made me nervous so I passed). I don't fertilize my older shrubs at all but I do mulch with shredded leaves every fall so they do get organic matter applied. To me, these are the easiest and most rewarding of the hydrangeas!!! Best of luck Cadence!!

I'll also add that I planted 5 (2) gallon Limelights this year in full sun (sun from noon till sundown). They all took off like crazy this year and loved the spot, filled with blooms. I definitely noticed some leaf burn but nothing crazy and hard to avoid with the crazy hot/dry summer we had.

I am actually going to move 1 of the 5 to a different location this fall. It was the last one in the row of the hedge and bordered under a tree. All started out the same size but this one that received less sun than the rest definitely showed less growth this year. Just some personal experience for thought.

A Tekk, I'm curious if maybe the one LL that didn't do as well could have been bc it was "under a tree". Perhaps root competition made a difference?
I'm not trying to be difficult. I only add my experience bc after reading threads where ppl insisted they need full sun to do well I ALMOST didnt plant mine. I am glad I ignored the advice and planted bc I honestly do not see much of a difference in my shrubs except, like I mentioned, the full sun LL's have already started changing to pink and my shade LL's are still green. I actually really like the green phase so I am preferring the shade planted shrubs.
Obviously all shade is different but I know from my own experiences that some things planted closer to my trees arent quite as vigorous bc of root competition.
Again, just adding this for future readers so they will not be discouraged from planting in less than full sun :)

My experience is that Hydrangea above all, loves much water and a good organic fertilizer and heavy pruning. Good feeling in a sunny location and in the shade. In shade she will bloom later and the bush will not be so compact.

Ireena

We just planted two limelights last Thursday and they are not doing very well. Any ideas what we are doing wrong?

Cut the flowers off. It's a bad time of year to plant. You need to really baby what is planted in August. I do it all the time but I've learned that you need to cut the lowers off so it can focus on growing roots. Right now it's stressed and having to put energy into flowers doesn't help. Last year, I had 2 Pinky Winkies that were in full bloom when I planted them on a hot August day. They looked exactly like that a few days after planting gradually getting worse until they lost their leaves. I cut the flowers off and kept them moist. They survived and are beautiful this year.

Hi all,
After reading all the post not sure what to do. last summer I planed a LL hydrangea that is trained like a tree with weeping branches. its in my flower bed in front of my house facing west, i have two trees that shade if so i am going to say that it gets sum sun in the morning and some in the afternoom. i am gusssing that its not enought sun it only put out about four blooms which are still green and small in about 30 stems.I am thinging of moving to the other end of the house were it in not so shaded from the trees.also what time of the year should i do this? ps.I live in LI new york.

This post was edited by steve1227 on Fri, Aug 9, 13 at 10:13

Move it in September to a sunnier spot. Water it well and mulch it with shredded leaves. If you don't like the 'tree' look, just back off on the pruning and you will most likely get growth from the base and it will grow into a nice shrub for you. I find it hard to maintain an attractive tree form hydrangea. My limelights are blooming now and I love how they look at dawn, dusk or on a cloudy day - the blooms almost glow. They are my favorite!!!

Thank you. Clipped the flowers and dead leaves off and it seems to be recovering a bit.

I have limelight hydrangea tree in full sun all day and verdict is out. love the tree, hope it does well!

It Will do Great