Conversation Piece Azalea

Conversation Piece Azalea
Rhododendron x Robin Hill 'Conversation Piece'
(roh-do-DEN-dron)

This flower is from a garden we started caring for this year. 'Conversation Piece' definitely was living up to it’s name as we all had something to say about the different colored flower appearing on the same plant. My natural thought was that it had been grafted and some of the rootstock had grown around the graft but research revealed that is not the case. The garden owner had told me they were Encore Azaleas , which I was excited at the opportunity to grow but a plant tag revealed them as 'Conversation Piece'.

'Conversation Piece' Azaleas are the low mounding evergreen type. They grow 2 to 3 feet tall with a similar spread. They thrive in USDA Zones 6 through 9.

The new garden is nice with a lot of mail order plants that the person has been growing for a few years and then decided to get some professional help to finish things off. We are acting as garden coaches for him as well as completing his plans and adding some things. I actually love it when our customers are active in the garden. They get to have the nice sense of ownership and pride that gardening can provide.

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Since it is Sunday here is the bonus flower. I am not sure what variety this is but it was already blooming last week. That seems almost a month ahead of our regular types. The plant had good color and a lot of buds. This picture was taken with the Nikon 70-300mm lens that Karen has pretty much taken over. I always thought this lens was not a full frame type but it is. My camera knows when you use a non-full frame lens and automatically cuts down the image circle to 5 megapixels. I see that isn’t necessary for this lens. Since this picture was shot at 300mm it was weird standing across the lawn to get the picture instead of being right in its face.



Mophead Hydrangea
Hydrangea macrophylla
(hy-DRAIN-juh) (mak-roh-FIL-uh)