Annabelles like afternoon shade and will flop some, so are often best at the top of a semishady wall where the somewhat weeping inclination is a plus. Or they do well if they can lean against other plants. Otherwise you may want to figure out some type of support system ahead of time - a short fence or a line of rebar and wire or . . .

With Annabelle, the distance apart is less important than with most other plants since they sucker - mine got to about 10 feet wide when I had a few years that I had difficulty getting into the garden. If you want almost instant gratification (a year or two depending on the size of your plants), I'd plant at about 3' apart to get a solid line. If you want to be a bit more patient, 5'-6' will fill in if the soil is reasonable within 4-5 years, I'd expect.

There is full afternoon sun where they will be planted. Do you think this will be an issue? They will be planted along a deer fence so we can use that to help support them. As they grow should we connect them to the fence with wire to keep them from flopping?

Where are you? For most of the US, full afternoon sun will leave them unhappy since they lose a lot of water through their large leaves, so even when the soil is moist they struggle to replace it in hot sun. When they are unhappy the leaves get brown-edged and the flowers fade faster. There have been a few folks on this forum in the northern US who say their H. arborescens (Annabelle or one of the similar cultivars) do fine in afternoon sun, but here in central NH where mine get sun 9-2 or so, the leaves start looking limp on really hot days by midafternoon even though they are in shade by then. (To read about others' experiences with Annabelle, you can do a search for Annabelle in the search box, but wait a second and then click on the option to "search in Hydrangeas" to only get info from this forum.)

You could plant one as an experiment and see how it does before investing a lot of time and money, but if you are south of about Cleveland, I wouldn't bother, even if you have irrigation; they would need afternoon shade. I wouldn't plan to tie them up regardless. I would give them a shorter fence in front of the chain link so their bases are supported from both sides, and it should be OK. They are deciduous, so you will be looking at 180' of twigginess all winter unless you plant a row of evergreens as well.

If you are somewhere too warm to even experiment with Annabelle, look at H. paniculata varieties: Bobo, Dharuma, Little Quickfire, Little Lamb, Little Lime, etc. They have white flowers that will slowly turn to shades of pink and there is quite a range of flower panicle shape, texture, and size as well as shrub size. The ones I listed are in the same size range as Annabelle (4') and tend to range from 3'-5', though there are many other types that are larger; there are several threads about Limelight which is around 8'. If you are somewhere really hot, afternoon sun will be too much for even H. paniculata to look good, and you should start asking about other plants to fit your site, looking at both large perennials and shrubs. You can also consider whether you want the formality of all the plants the same or whether a more casual mix will suit your style.

Here's how to add your location info so that it posts by your name automatically:

Go to Your Houzz in the upper right of every page, click Edit Profile, and on the left side click advanced settings. Well down the advanced settings page is a blank labeled Climate Zone for Garden Forums along with a link to find your zone.

If you add info on your state or the nearest large city you will get even better information since zone only relates to average coldest winter temperatures.

Then return to the top of the page and click Done Editing.

This is so helpful! I'll add our location info on my profile. I'm in Fairfield County, CT - near NYC. We are right by (though not on) the Long Island Sound so I think we are a bit of a micro-climate as compared to part of town that are farther inland. My landscape architect had initially suggested planting the Panticulata Hydrangeas but I just don't love the conical shape. It's cost prohibitive to plant a wall of evergreens that's 180 linear feet and we are only looking to create about 4 - 5 feet of privacy in terms of height which is why I was thinking about the hydrangeas. I felt like the twiginess as it develops would provide a bit of privacy during the winter. Here are photos of where the hedge would go - it borders our neighbors front and side yards which are quite beautiful. That's their white garage in the center of the 180 linear run. We planted the patch of green giants in front of their garage and the hydrangea hedge would run along the fence on either side and then in front of those green giants to tie both sides together. Basically I want to plant in front of the entire run of the split rail fence.

Our neighbors planted a mini forest of dogwoods in their front yard on our border (to the left of the white garage) and they have a gorgeous allee of pear trees in the back (to the right of the garage). I wanted to preserve our view of their trees by instilling something lower on our side. The split rail fence in the photos belongs to them, the deer fencing (11 feet high) on our side is ours, required by the city to be so tall because their fence was deemed "climbable" and they didn't want us to add invisible mesh to their side of it. The deer fence is generally invisible fortunately. You can barely make it out in these photos.

After reading some of the discussion threads from past posts I'm wondering if we should consider the Silver Dollar or the Incrediball instead of the Annabelle. Any thoughts? I would love to plant a hedge that will grow to at least 5 feet if not a bit higher eventually. The photos of the droopy Annabelles on the discussion boards are a bit of a concern!

You might also want to consider the rounder, more lacy flowers of H. paniculata Quickfire. It gets to about 6' and would be better suited to the sun. Or Little Quickfire, Little Lamb, or Little Lime, all of which are more like 5' with more rounded flower heads of varying density depending on the cultivar. Silver Dollar is another paniculata, but I don't know anything about it. Photos show a somewhat intermediate conical flower panicle form, but like any of the H. paniculatas will be better suited to sun than any of the H. arborescens. Incrediball is H. arborescens and so will struggle in the sun and the flowers won't keep well like Annabelle.

Quickfire summer

Quickfire fall

I had three Annabelles planted Last July (14 months ago). I had the guy replace all of them this early spring because they looked like crap by the end of the summer, and failed to leaf out this spring. He told me they tend to "struggle" until they are established.

Fast forward to now. They are planted in full sun (south, southwestern exposure). Add that to the extreme lack of rain we had this summer. It has been tough on them (and on me because of the constant watering).

I think they look kind of crappy. But I am hopeful that next summer will not as hot and dry here in Michigan.

Here is what they look like now.

On the flip side, 3 Little Limes were planted in my front yard last summer and get full morning sun. They are huge (40"x40" each) and beautiful after only one year.

Thanks for the advice. Based on the feedback about the Annabelles we planted 55 Limelight Hydrangeas (3 gallons each) instead. They seem to be thriving and they continue to flower though my guess is that they will go dormant soon. I'll take some photos next year to show their progress!

Limelights will get taller than your goal, more like 8', but the dogwoods will get taller than that, so you should still have a good view of them when blooming.

Your deciduous hedge is going to look twiggy and transparent during the winter if you don't back it with a fence or evergreen shrubs - notice that in the above shots of the one Hydrangea paniculata it is surrounded by evergreen shrubs. Like a diva flanked on stage by her supporting cast.

Tim Wood that hedge is spectacular.

Tim, is the hedge of Incrediball given additional water? What is the soil like?

This species of Hydrangea is not prone to wilting like the bigleaf hydrangeas are, so no extra watering or special soil is needed. It is very adaptable and flowers dependably every summer.

I guess I want to know if Incrediball is different than other H. arborescens. I have Annabelle, and it does need some shade here in my well-drained soil, even with mulch, since I don't irrigate. Is Incrediball different in its tolerance of drier soil than Annabelle?

I had one for maybe 2-3 years and it was similar, moisture sensitive wise, to an Annabelle that I had in the opposite side of the house. I find that oakleafs are more tolerant to dryness in my area than the others. I did find the Incrediball blooms to be larger and it did not flop as much buuuut if it rained hard enough, it flopped. So while the stems are stronger, they are not immune to having issues sometimes. Then, ugh, the dogs dug it out in search of coffee grounds and, days later, I found it elsewhere in the yard. Still in one piece, unscathed but dry; could not save it.