For the time being, I’ll vote Tuff Stuff Ah-Ha as the most beautiful hydrangea nobody knows.
I know that’s an exaggeration, especially considering it’s the Proven Winners’ National Hydrangea of the Year.
If I show you a flower, you might think it’s a lace hydrangea. But I bet most of the top-notch hydrangeas you’ve seen are an assortment of large-leaved hydrangeas botanically known as Hydrangea macrophylla. These are also often referred to as French hydrangeas, although they are not native to France.
Tuff Stuff Ah-Ah is a mountain hydrangea botanically known as Hydrangea serrata. It comes from the higher coastal areas of Japan, Korea and China. This might make you think you really need an altitude to be successful, but a trial with the University of Florida showed they can even adapt to central Florida.
I’m in my third season of growing Tuff Stuff Ah-Ha, and they just keep getting better and better with each season. This is a post-flowering hydrangea and I’m here to tell you that if you’ve tried other post-flowerers and failed, this one won’t disappoint. Mine are now a little over 36 inches tall and the spread is 42 inches-plus. My flowers are huge, up to 10 inches in diameter, with most being around 20 inches tall.
In the landscape, I worked her with hostas. First, I created a sort of winding river with Shadowland Etched Glass, a gold chartreuse and green variegation that just “look at me!” in combination with the intense blue color of the hydrangea. If you have alkaline soil, then you can assume that your Tuff Stuff Ah-Ha blooms will be pink.
This year I added Shadowland Autumn Frost in collaboration with the hydrangeas on the higher side of my slope. This has a creamy yellow gold to an almost buttery white color, which forms a breathtaking contrast to the blue. I’m also adding more Bloom-a-Thon Red azaleas in the hopes that they can sync up later in an incredible color show.
The Garden Guy now has about 35 hydrangeas in his Midland, Georgia landscape. I have Hydrangea macrophylla cultivars, H. paniculata selections and a few H. arborescens, but it is the Hydrangea serrata Tuff Stuff Ah-Ha that completely impresses me not only with its beauty and elegant shape but also with the size of the flowers blew away. Every day I see pollinators visiting the tiny fertile flowers. (I failed miserably to document this with photos.)
I grow them in the middle of a small grove of trees that provides the perfect sun protection needed for those hot West Georgia summers. Moist, fertile, well-drained soil makes the hydrangeas, hostas and azaleas look their best.
There is a large area of the country where the Tuff Stuff Mountain Hydrangeas can be planted as recommended for Zones 5-9. There are four choices in the series, Tiny Tuff Stuff (only 24 inches tall), Tuff Stuff, Tuff Stuff Red, and Tuff Stuff Ah-Ha.
They also added a mountain hydrangea to the Let’s Dance series called Let’s Dance Can Do this spring, which will grow to be 48 inches tall. So let the search begin now and let the planting begin this weekend.
(Norman Winter, gardener, garden spokesperson, 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 free plants for review from the companies he oversees.)
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Copyright 2021 Tribune Content Agency.
