Very beautiful! just be careful with the amount of water you provide, they don’t need as much as Annabelle. I had four MMs and they all died, two from my over-watering, and two from torrential rainfall. One by one, the stems withered and died on all of them.

Wendy, it looks great. Does this one stay smaller than Invincibelle? Shorter stems might prevent some of the flopping that Invincibelle is noted for. It is almost inevitable that just when the flowers are big & beautiful a thunderstorm will roll through with some intense rain, which just about puts them to the ground. We’ve got a short fence in front of them, but they still look pretty bad following a weather event.

stunning. lets see more of the garden... thx for the pix.. ken

@lovemycorgi I'm so sorry to hear that. I'm wondering if your soil was not quite right. Mine gets hit by the sprinkler daily. This spring/summer we have had records amount of rain. In the winter all the shovelled deck snow lands on top of her. She seems invincible (sorry for the pun!!) I was thinking that all the rain may have helped put on a beautiful show this summer. Keep in mind that the "hydra..." in hydrangea means water. At my old house, I had a real Annabelle and she lived in part of the property that was poor draining and she did fine (other than flopping).

@maackie We've had lots of heavy downpours this season and she didn't wince. Absolutely no flopping at any time. It's less than 3' tall now, so time will tell. I don't think I pruned it after the winter. The stems/branches seemed intact so I left them alone. I vaguely recall with my old Annabelle, I think I pruned her like a perennial.

I was just re-reading about MM and the description said she can rebloom through frost. woo-hoo! I'm going to deadhead her today (90% brown) and cross my fingers for more.

My friend said the deer ate hers. That's kind of ironic because I bought her hers for her birthday one year. (one for her... one for me ... LOL)

mine was gorgeous until a few weeks ago when its blossoms browned!

Wendy, maybe you’ve discovered the key to success with this particular hydrangea - plant it as a quart and give it a couple of years to acclimate! Mine were planted as 3 gallon shrubs and died within weeks/months, perhaps the transplant shock was just too much. I’ve never had such poor luck with any other hydrangea.

A few others on the forum had MM die also. Tim Wood, from Proven Winners, chimed in on this thread with his thoughts.

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/5744693/is-my-mini-mauvette-dying#n=30

That is so amazing yet depressing! Thanks for posting that. Everything in that post about MM, I have had the opposite experience. My blooms also lasted a long time I think, maybe due to many rainy cloudy periods. Most rain in July ever! 18" in the general region.

My friend who also got the 1 qt birthday gift has not had any growing troubles - except the deer. She said it is recovering well since deer meal after all the rain we've had. Hers is in more shade than mine and she has had less blooms.

If MM has a fussy root system, it does make sense that starting it from a quart plant would be beneficial. That is how the growers plant too. I suspect hey are not transplanting 3gal plants in their trials.