Hallelujah, it's hydrangea season! Actually, hydrangea season comes early in the Deep South and even more so if you are growing Let’s Dance Sky View hydrangea. This will be my third year, and the first week of May always brings a bubbling of blooms.

To me this explosion of blooms with the onset of spring makes it the most precocious variety in the trade. Some botanical definitions say precociousness means flowers before leaves. Yet in pecans it means production early in maturity.

Natalie Carmolli with Proven Winners Color Choice explains it this way: “Let’s Dance Sky View sets buds at every leaf node along the stem, not just at the leaf tips. Even if the tip buds are lost to inclement weather, pruning or even deer grazing the lower old buds will still bloom. It has backup buds!”

The early kickoff of blooms is welcome because it won’t be long until the hydrangea boil commences. Don’t let that deter you because all plant material gets put through the ringer in July and August, and Let’s Dance Sky View is up to the test. It doesn’t just survive the heat of the South but the frigid temperatures of the North. We are talking about zone 4 Michigan! All you must do is select a site with part sun to sun, morning sun in the South, and fertile, well-drained soil.

One thing The Garden Guy loves about Let’s Dance Sky View is its size; it will reach 2 to 3 feet tall and 2 to 4 feet wide. I can work with that when creating landscape combinations. I know hydrangea lovers are like rose growers with hundreds of plants. That is perfectly fine, but I love beautiful hydrangeas with partners.

No matter the color, Let's Dance Sky View blossoms look like they were crafted of rare China. They may be icy pink, soft lavender or sky blue, and I really love it when they have a mix of all three. I photographed blooms on May 31 that were one color and then showed off a blue transformation on June 4.

There is just something special about Let’s Dance Sky View hydrangeas that are blue when paired with the creamy gold and green of Shadowland Autumn Frost hosta or the electrifying chartreuse of Shadowland Coast to Coast. Partnering with perennials seems a little more challenging but oh so fun. The challenge comes from predicting pace of growth. This means at some point encroachment may occur, requiring an adjustment.

I also love the look of Let’s Dance Sky View hydrangea and Pyromania Backdraft kniphofia and the gold leaves of Carex grass as a partner too. But let’s not forget about annuals as potential combinations. Soprano impatiens, Heart to Heart caladiums and ColorBlaze coleus will sizzle and perform until a killing frost occurs.

Let’s Dance Sky View is a hybrid of the Hydrangea macrophylla or mophead type and the Hydrangea serrata or mountain hydrangea and give you the best of both worlds. They get the beauty of the mophead and the hardiness of the mountain DNA. It was the Proven Winners Hydrangea of the Year in 2024 and will quickly become your favorite too.

____

(Norman Winter, horticulturist, garden speaker and author of “Tough-as-Nails Flowers for the South” and “Captivating Combinations: Color and Style in the Garden.” Follow him on Facebook @NormanWinterTheGardenGuy.)

(NOTE TO EDITORS: Norman Winter receives complimentary plants to review from the companies he covers.)

©2025 Tribune Content Agency, LLC