Fungicide spraying is preventative, not curative. You have to spray BEFORE it gets bad. After about ten years of growing GC, I would note the following: 1. GC is quite vulnerable to black spot, as mine gets it here where black spot is pretty uncommon and mild, while 95% of my other roses never show a spot. 2. GC doesn't like hard pruning, so take off as little as you can. It forms a nicely shaped plant without much correction needed, just deadhead to keep it blooming. 3. GC has truly nasty prickles--I never go near it without gloves.

Cardboard is fine in any size. The smaller, the better, but you do what you can. Your box looks tiny. How big is it? How many worms? The whole idea that worms eat bedding until you feed them is a complete misunderstanding of what the composting process is. Worms eat whatever has decomposed to the point that they can slurp it into their mouths. The worms don't understand the distinction between bedding and food, and neither do they care. We care so that we can create an optimum environment for them. Part of that optimum environment is creating a microbe rich environment, and that won't happen any time soon with nothing but damp cardboard. You really should provide at least a small amount of food at least a week before putting worms in the bin. This gives it a chance to start breaking down so the worms have something to eat. So toss in a little food now. How much depends on the size of the bin and the amount of worm biomass in the bin.

Welcome to the New England forum. What a lovely yard you have! I will start by saying that I don't grow this variety of Hydrangea paniculata, though I do have 3 other selections (White Diamond, Pinky Winky, and Quickfire.) I also have put some thought and planning into screening certain views in my garden, so hopefully I can contribute something useful. IME new plants take a bit of time after initial planting to get to their ultimate shape. New plantings are putting much of their growth energy into establishing roots their first growing season. Your plants look like they are also blooming well, and IME H. paniculata varieties establish quicker than many other woody plants, so you will probably see additional vigorous top growth this coming season and thereafter. I'd wait until after the third season to decide whether they will provide the screening that you want. There is a PeeGee down the road from me that is out in the open on all sides like yours, and I will take a look at it next time I go by to see how close to the ground it wants to grow. A couple of comments about your inspiration photo (IP) vs. your situation: How sure are you that the IP is actually PeeGee? There are a bunch of different varieties of H. paniculata with somewhat different overall size; branch stiffness; blossom color, shape, and timing; and each has a slightly different look. Your photo is a bit too fuzzy to my eye to be sure which it is. Your planting situation (open on all sides) is a bit different than the IP, which is backed by other plants. This has two potential effects on the H. paniculatas in the IP which could give them a different appearance than yours (but might not given a few years of growth.) First, this type of Hydrangea prefers a lot of light and the IP's backing of taller plants may be causing the hydrangeas to reach forward and weep a bit in its effort to get more light. Second, since there is more than one layer of plants, any gaps are covered up by the plants in the background. So, what can you do? You can be patient and see how they fill in once they really get growing. You may find that given a couple of years that they do what you want without any other planting since they naturally have an arching branch form. H. paniculata responds well to hard pruning once established, and you could cut them back to below where they are currently sending out leafy branches to get them to branch out lower. This would leave you without screening for a bit when you did this, however, though they will grow back quickly (a couple of months). Or you can do what I do when I want really dense screening; I plant 2-3 layers of plants so that any gaps are filled by other plants. So, you could plant some mid-sized perennials or lower shrubs to fill in the lower gaps of your PeeGees. To make specific suggestions that would be successful we'd need more information such as whether you are willing to plant on this side of the split rail fence and how much room there is on the other side of the PeeGees before the pool deck seating area, amount of sun, and compass direction of the view from the photographer to the pool. However, I've seen photos of Hydrangea arborescens Annabelle in front of H. paniculata, and there are a number of other possible plants that might work here to provide another layer to fill in gaps if they remain. Here are a few blog posts from a Detroit area designer, Deborah Silver, that may give you some ideas. (Her favorite Hydrangea, Limelight, is another H. paniculata, so much of what she says about them would apply to your PeeGees.) Designing with Hydrangeas and here are photos of Annabelle with Limelight (fourth and fifth photos): Hydrangeas and some more photos of the same garden. You can see how having more than one kind of plant (in this case two kinds of Hydrangea) and more than one row can make for a dense planting, since I think this is just a year old. The H. paniculatas will get much taller while Annabelle will top out at 4'. These two both have info on pruning H. paniculatas Let's Talk Pruning A Second Look at Limelight Despite what she says about pruning H. paniculatas, I never prune my H. paniculatas. Here is my 6 year old Pinky Winky which has never seen pruners other than to remove the spent blossoms on the branch tips from the previous year each spring, and it is completely full all the way down to the ground. It's about 8' tall. I think that PeeGees tend to be a bit more fountain-shaped than either Limelight or Pinky Winky.

When it comes to the Hydrangea paniculata, don't over complicate things by worrying about pruning. With all the breeding work that has been done in the last decade or two pick the variety that fits the space and assume everything will get a little bigger than the tag says. These are really no brainer plants. These are my observations with many varieties in my location (MN). If the spent flowers bother you, prune them off late fall through early spring. Get out the shears and do it. No need to fuss with hand pruners and each individual flower. Otherwise the plant will grow over them. Also, it seems like the the more lace cap type flowers tend to break off over the winter. Pruning them back will not significantly reduce their size in a given season once established. I've seen hard pruned plants grow taller than the unpruned specimen of the same variety. Right plant, right place. Hard pruning seems to create a later and more uneven bloom cycle on the plant. I prefer the plant blooming consistently around the whole plant so don't prune or just lightly. I haven't seen a consistent result of pruning and flop prevention. I think age structure are more important. Certain varieties with big, full flowers are more prone to flop with the right weather event. And with some of the new breeding in Hydrangea arborescens those of us in cold zones that don't want to deal with Hydrangea macrophylla even variation in sizes, colors, shapes and timing. Just no blues.