Name: Hydrangea macrophylla × serrata ‘SMNHSI’ aka Let’s Dance Can Do!^®

Type of Plant: This is a hybrid of a bigleaf-hydrangea and a mountain hydrangea, so you get the advantages of both. It will grow about three feet tall and wide, and is best planted in part sun to part shade…in other words, early morning sun or late afternoon sun is ideal.  But in this plant you get something that other macrophylla or serrata varieties don’t deliver. Read on, dear Hydrangea lover.

Why I Love This Plant:    First, let me tell you about my personal experience with this shrub this year. The kind folks at Spring Meadow Nursery and Proven Winners sent me one of these plants last summer, and I planted it on the side of my yard, in part-sun, to see what it would do.

As those who live on Cape Cod know, we had a “Hydrangea Hysteria” winter when the temperatures plunged down to well below zero one night, which killed most of these plants to the ground. Although both macrophylla and serrata Hydrangeas usually live through such cold temperatures and grow back from the ground, their flower buds for the coming summer are zapped. Tragic!

So, I wasn’t surprised to see that Can Do (when you’re friends, you can shorten the name, yes?) had died to the ground like most of my other Hydrangeas. But I was amazed to see that when this plant emerged from the soil in the spring, every single new stalk had flower buds on the top! Every one.

There are many varieties of Hydrangeas that flower on what’s called “old wood” (buds formed the previous summer) and on new growth (buds formed the current summer), but most of these don’t come into flower on the new stalks until later in the season. Hydrangea geeks call these “remontant varieties.” But many of the newly bred varieties are game changers in this regard in that they flower much earlier on new stems.

My Can Do are still developing, and as they continue to open up I’ll post more photos here. In the meantime, here’s why I love this plant: 1. You get the pink or lavender flowers of a macrophylla and the bud-hardiness of the serrata. 2. You also get the beauty of a lacecap and a mophead, on the same plant. 3. Cold winter? No problem…they are quick to flower. 4. A smaller size that fits in with many landscapes and flower gardens.

…I’ll keep you updated!

After a winter when we had a night of minus 9, this Hydrangea grew back from the roots with a flower on the top of each stem. And this is it’s first year! Look how different each flower development is early in the summer. Read on…

Some flowers start out looking like a typical lacecap.

Others blooms open more randomly around the flower head.

In my acidic soil the flowers are lavender.

I’ll post more photos later in the summer since these are just beginning to open and develop. But even now, I know that Let’s Dance Can Do, is a Hydrangea that I can recommend for those who want a lavender or pink flowering plant that grows about 3 feet tall and wide.