How To Grow Limelight Hydrangea

August 6, 2013 by Pam Kessler 44 Comments

How to grow and care for your Limelight Hydrangea. A beautiful deciduous shrub for your garden which is very forgiving and easy to grow.

Normally, I would say that my favorite plant is my Black-eyed Susan vine, but lately I’ve been having an affair with my Limelight hydrangea.

Officially, they say the blooms are a chartreuse color, but around here they become this very pretty creamy white color with just tinge of lime green poking through.

They start blooming in late July and if you can bear to leave the yummy blooms on the plants until fall . . . BOOM . . they turn a deep pink color that looks wonderful in fall arrangements.

Limelight hydrangea in fall - the blooms open as chartreuse in the summer and fade to a beautiful rich pink color in the fall if left on the bush.

And they dry beautifully!

Any questions???

OK, you in the first row. Yes, you with the yoga pants on, eating a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

Do Limelight hydrangeas need full sun?

They like part-sun to full-sun. I have two of these and the one that gets more sun during the day gets twice as many blooms.

Now to be fair, when I planted them they were in equal sun vs shade positions, but the tree on the right side of the house grew so much it didn’t do that Limelight any favors.

How do I find these guys?

Their name is Hydrangea paniculata ‘Limelight’ (common name Panicle hydrangea)- just check with your local nursery to see if they sell them in your area or you can buy them online at Amazon.

How tall do Limelight hydrangeas get?

6-8 foot tall, so just a little shorter than Bigfoot.

Lime green color of Limelight hydrangea (bright chartreuse to be exact)

Will they grow where I live?

Golly, that all depends where you live. They are hardy in zones – 3a- 9b. If you don’t already know your gardening zone, you can go to the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map, input your zip code and it will tell you your zone.

Do Limelight hydrangea bloom on old or new wood?

Glad you asked. They bloom on new wood, which is another way of saying new growth.

Do you cut back Limelight hydrangeas?

Since they bloom from new wood, any heavy pruning should be done in winter or very early spring before the new growth emerges. Otherwise you are going to drastically reduce the number of glorious blooms!

Limelight Hydrangea spacing?

If you are interested in growing your Limelight hydrangea as a hedge (gorgeous look by the way), you can space them 7-8 feet apart (center of plant to center of plant).

What to plant with my Limelight hydrangea?

Some wonderful limelight hydrangeas companion plants are:

Hostas – hostas will look wonderful planted around your Limelight. The variegated varieties can take a little more sun that your typical shade loving variety and come in some wonderful whites and golds mixed with green.

Coral Bells (Heuchera) – I have some plum colored coral bells planted near one of my Limelight hydrangeas and the color contrast is just beautiful.

Ornamental Grasses – Some of the striped varieties of ornamental grasses really play off the colors of the Limelight. One of my favorite varieties is Golden Japanese Forest Grass (Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’) which has beautiful golden foliage with thin stripes of green running through them. The gold appears almost chartreuse in shadier areas.

Limelight hydrangea produces cone shaped flowers.

I have four hydrangea already, do I really needs another hydrangea?

You betcha! They are footloose and fancy free. I water them if we’re having an extended drought, but generally these guys are on their own!

And you can NEVER have enough hydrangeas in your outdoor lineup. Never. Ever. Ever.

So to recap,