Rosebay Rhododendron Bud

Rosebay Rhododendron

Rhododendron maximum

(roh-do-DEN-dron) (MAKS-ih-mum)

Synonym: Great Laurel

Wordless Wednesday

Hybrid Rhododendron

Hybrid Rhododendron
Rhododendron 'Chionoides'
(roh-do-DEN-dron)

Years ago this wasn’t my favorite Rhododendron but it has through the years won me over. One thing that is nice about it is the smaller general habit of the plant. It stays a dense and bushy 4 feet tall by 4 to 5 feet wide. It probably isn’t dwarf but compared to a lot of similar Rhodos it seems that way. It is also always a heavy flowerer coming out with nice trusses of white flowers in the late rhododendron season ( blooms in late May here). The dark green kind of pointed foliage is nice all year. So if you are looking for a dense, slower growing broadleaf evergreen for your garden 'Chionoides' rhododendron is a good choice.

The weather around here is so whacky. After a mini heat wave it is in the 50’s this morning with a good breeze. A little cool for just a tee shirt. Now all we need is some rain, which may come next Tuesday.

Dexter Rhododendron

Dexter Rhododendron
Rhododendron 'Scintillation'
(roh-do-DEN-dron)

Rhododendron

Rhododendron
(roh-do-DEN-dron)

Yesterday we went to garden party at an old friend’s house that passed away in February. The garden is spectacular and David was one of the biggest plant collectors I have ever seen. His historical house was filled with all sorts of things that you would normally just drool over in garden catalogs. He had supervised all the design and installation work himself. Often spending long hours with the shovel himself.

I had visited him many times at the ‘farm’ but had never been there at this time of year. His collection of Rhododendrons and Azaleas were blooming with a lot of other fascinating plants. Luckily some provisions were made for continuing the garden with several groups and a trust fund. So this horticultural gem will continue wowing visitors for sometime. Learning this made the visit a little less bittersweet and I imagined him being happy with the large turnout for his going away party.

This yellow Azalea was top notch and was glowing on a kind of damp and dark day.

Yellow Rhododendron

Rhododendron
Rhododendron 'Capistrano'
(roh-do-DEN-dron)

It’s getting to be Rhododendron season here and his little yellow one is coming along nicely. Years ago it seemed you couldn’t really find yellow flowered rhododendrons but now there are several varieties available. 'Capistrano' was bred by Dr, David Leach and introduced by Wayside Gardens. He considered it his best yellow and I have to agree.

'Capistrano' is a low spreading type that grows to 4 to 5 feet tall and 6 feet wide. That is a nice size since you don’t have to worry about the plant getting “too leggy”, which happens to a lot of the other rhododendrons. The foliage is pest and disease resistant and a nice glossy green.

Triandrus Narcissus

Triandrus Narcissus
Narcissus 'Thalia'
(nar-SIS-us)
Synonyms: Angel's Tears

The Estate has a large Daffodil collection. It is planted in kind of loose groups not big masses. Of all the varieties this one is one of my favorites. The color is really a pure white and the flowers seem to bloom in groups. A very showy cultivar that I wished I had at least tried a shot in monochrome. There were a lot of flowers out in the garden but not too much time to concentrate on trying to get good pictures of them.


Double Flowered PJM Rhododendron Hybrid
Rhododendron ‘Weston’s Pink Diamond’

This plant has been discussed on this blog before. It seemed that this year it is more loaded with flowers than ever before. It is really just an explosion of pink. I shot this with a shallow depth of field to blur the background and it worked.

Tomorrow a little bit about our foray into the NYC gardening market.

Blue Rhododendron

Blue Rhododendron
Rhododendron polycladum ‘Blue Diamond’
(roh-do-DEN-dron)

This little leaf Rhododendron was blooming at the nursery. Somebody was buying the last three so there was no impulse to buy one although the blue color was alluring. I am glad I didn’t get one as later research indicated a hardiness of Zone 7, which is one zone warmer than where I was thinking of putting it.

I was able to get some of the replacement rose bushes that are needed in the big rose garden. I will publish the list soon. Not too many nurseries around here seem to sell the Hybrid Teas and Floribundas anymore. Everything is geared to the landscape, Austin, and carpet roses these days.

Unusual Rhododendron

Unusual Rhododendron

For the past couple of years I have had the pleasure of tending to this Rhododendron. Its color and habit are unusual for this area. It has been doing a lot better since we have been putting up burlap protection during the winter. After we started doing that it has rewarded us with a lot of flowers. I would find the color hard to describe as the buds are almost a completely different color than the flowers. This plant gives off kind of a warm pastel glow when the sun hits it right.

Vireya Rhododendrons

Vireya Rhododendron
Rhododendron
(roh-do-DEN-dron)
Click Here for a Larger Version

These plants are often referred to as tropical rhododendrons or the Malesian Rhododendron neither of which is the best term to use. I simply call them Vireya. There was quite a few specimens at the Pana`ewa Rainforest Zoo and Gardens near Hilo. Having the plants grouped together and in bloom was a special treat. The Zoo and Gardens are small but had some interesting things and I was glad I stopped in. Since it was free the price was certainly right.

Click Here for a Larger Version

There are about 330 different species of Vireya Rhododendrons and hundreds of cultivars. They never have blue pigment in the flowers and nor are the flowers spotted. These plants cannot tolerate frost and often grow in the cooler upper elevation ( 3,000-7,500 feet) mountain areas of the Philippines, Borneo, New Guinea and Indonesia and the surrounding island groups. A few species are considered native to India, Australia, Taiwan and the Solomon Islands. They grow as epiphytes (a plant that grows on another plant but is not parasitic) in the wild but can also be terrestrial in habit. The flowers of the white one were particularly fragrant.

Click Here for a Larger Version

Ruby Rhododendron

Rhododendron ‘Ruby F. Bowman’
(roh-do-DEN-dron)

This Rhododendron had an interesting color. It wasn’t red and it wasn’t pink and not lavender either. It was one of the few Rhodos that was blooming at Planting Fields last weekend. So far the Rhododendron season has been less than impressive. They seem a little late and the ones that are blooming don’t have that vibrancy or vigor they usually do.

‘Ruby F. Bowman’ is a hardy (down to 0 degrees F) early to mid season bloomer. It is a vigorous grower.

Since somebody asked to see some coral Azaleas here you go. This one wasn’t named. Contrary to what I said about the Rhododendrons the Azaleas have been having a stellar season. I have seen a lot of truly beautiful ones this year.

Dwarf Rhododendron Species

Yak Rhododendron
Rhododendron degronianum subsp. yakushimanum

A Rhododendron and Azalea

A Rhododendron and Azalea

Continuing yesterday’s theme of the unknown Dahlia here are some pictures of a Rhododendron and Azalea that I can’t identify. In the past I probably wouldn’t have even taken these shots because I want to be able to identify all the plants and flowers that are posted here but after further consideration I have decided to go ahead and post them.


With Rhododendron and Azalea there are several thousand cultivars to choose from, so unless it is a common variety there isn’t much hope of getting the name. Both of these were growing in public places so there was no quizzing the gardeners on the name.

Today I going to try and visit all 14 gardens that we are tending to this year. I was joking the other day that there are four people and 14 gardens that is 3.5 gardens per person. It is a bit ambitious since they are all pretty far flung but it should provide some photo opportunities. I am cleaning off some memory cards and charging up the batteries. I am even going to take my Coolpix 8400 with me. I haven’t used that camera in awhile and it is always fun to mix up the equipment now and then.

Dianthus deltoides ‘Double North’

Dianthus deltoides ‘Double North’
(dy-AN-thus) (del-TOY-deez)
Synonyms: Maiden Pink

This is the first time I have seen this Dr Keith Hammett (New Zealand) introduction. I thought it was beautiful. The grey-bluish foliage had formed a nice mound and the flowers were on short stems. I really love Dianthus but it has been finicky for me before. I keep trying it anyway. The garden I was working in yesterday had a whole walk way planted with the pink version of this plant and it made a wonderful edge.

I am not going to try and explain my day today. Let’s just say it has 4 tractor trailer loads of plant material. From 1-gallon perennials to some 14 to 16 foot White Pines. I am going to be planting the stuff in a couple of weeks. Someone else designed the garden and bought the trees. I just get to dig the holes!

As a follow up to the Nova Zembla Rhododendron bud I posted a couple of days ago here is the flower after it opens. It looks more red when viewed from a distance.

'Nova Zembla' Rhododendron Bud

'Nova Zembla' Rhododendron Bud

The Red Rhododendrons were starting to bloom at the farm. The White Azaleas were in full bloom underneath them and it was a nice combination. I know some gardeners don’t like white and red together but it is one of my favorite color combinations. The picture I took of them together didn’t come out and the Rhodos really needed a few more days to be in full bloom.

‘Nova Zembla’ was introduced in 1902 and it is considered one of the hardiest reds. There are certainly more exciting red Rhododendrons but Novas seem to be very dependable. They can get up to 10 feet tall and have nice foliage. Since this is only picture of the bud you can’t see that the flower has nice black spots when open.


What are you going to say about White Azaleas? They have really been spectacular this year (like most years). I am not sure of the cultivar on these but if I had to guess it would ‘Delaware Valley White’. These planted in front of the Rhododendrons with some semi-dwarf type of Juniper. When I first saw the Azaleas and Junipers together I thought that doesn’t look good but when they bloomed it was actually pretty nice. The Juniper needs to be pruned since it is kind of taking over.

Today is a holiday in the US and I am not working. I think I went 40 days straight without a day off and it feels weird not to be at work.

Bluest Azalea

Bluest Azalea

The title of this post is kind of a joke. When I bought this plant at a strange nursery in Pennsylvania the farmer (that what would be the best way to describe him) said, “This is the bluest azalea there is”. Since it was fall I couldn’t dispute that fact although it did look suspiciously like a little leaf Rhododendron. I bought it anyway without knowing the name and sure enough the next year it bloomed and I had to admit it was pretty blue. This was 15 years ago and before some of the recent blue flowered introductions. I wish I could find out the name because I like having the names for all the Rhodos in the collection. For all I know this is something the farmer could have crossed himself. The color is straight out of the camera.


Here are couple more pictures of some of the little leaf Rhododendrons I enjoyed during the spring. None of these were marked with the cultivar name. So this is kind of the unknown Rhodos post.



This one is some type of Rhododendron yakushimanum cultivar. They sure are pretty, especially when the buds are first starting to open up.


Yesterday was a wash out here. It was really cold, windy and wet at the nursery. I was pleasantly surprised to find a lot of the flowers I was looking for. I still need forty flats of salmon pink Impatiens.

Creeping Phlox

Creeping Phlox
Phlox stolonifera 'Sherwood Purple’
(floks) (sto-lo-NIF-er-uh)

This is underused hardy, beautiful groundcover. I like it for light shade and it fills in and spreads nicely without being a pain in the you know what. The color is outstanding and it blooms early adding a nice touch of color this time of year. I have been working with a customer to try and find a nice groundcover for their garden and when I saw a couple of these I had to try a few even though they hadn’t seen it. They return next week so I will know then if they like it and I can get some more. I would recommend this plant for rock gardens, borders and masses. It tolerates a wide range of conditions. It can grow in sun, shade, semi-moist or dry soil.

If you can, get the ‘Sherwood Purple’ type as the flowers are a little bigger and have a darker color. The cultivar also shows better Powdery Mildew resistance.

This photo doesn't quite do justice to the color of this flower.

Since I have about 5 new gardens I am taking care of there are lots of new plants to get to know and try and help grow to their maximum potential. When I first went to this garden I noticed they had a Rhododendron in the back foundation planting that was covered with burlap for the winter. I thought that a little odd since it seems to be a plant species that can make it outdoors without much protection. When I went back yesterday I saw it was blooming and the color was beautiful. I can see why they covered it. I don’t think I have seen this particular color before. It has a little leaf spot but I think I can cure that with a one or two well-timed fungicide applications. I had to do some emergency watering on some new trees at this house. It really has been dry here. Monday we are suppose to get some rain, hooray!

This is a cropped picture of the bud. I would love some guess as to the name of this Rhodo.
Today I am going to visit Molly’s doctor’s farm. It was nice of him to invite us over. I am going to try and sneak away for a couple of pictures after that and then tackle my mountain of paper work. We got three floral arrangements in honor of Molly this week. I had to laugh a little at this. I have had quite a few dogs over the years and I don’t think I remember getting any flowers before. They are beautiful and it was very thoughtful of the people that sent them.

Yellow Fall Foliage

Fall Foliage on Japanese Stewartia (S. pseudocamellia)

Yellow Fall Foliage

On Friday I took my camera to work to try and record a few last foliage shots. The weather sure wasn’t cooperating as it was really windy, some of the gusts, I am guessing were 50 mph (80 kmh). On the Estate we have some big trees that I would say are a little shaky in that kind of wind. We only remove a tree when it is really dead as they add so much to the garden and landscape. So on a day like Friday you have to keep an eye out for any trees or large limbs that might come down. Nature has its own way of sort of tidying these things up. Lucky we only had a few sticks that fell, although at the house across the street a 50-foot tree snapped at the base. It wasn’t our turn to have any damage, this time. Anyway the winds didn’t help with the snapping of pictures but I managed to get these couple of pictures in between the huge gusts.

Still a lot of yellow foliage left on the trees.

This will probably be a two-part post as yellow is the predominate foliage color we have left. I will say again it was a very weird foliage season with some highs and lows. I don’t remember having this much foliage left on the trees this late but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. There are some trees that still haven’t turned and on some plants the foliage burnt off from the frost while it was still green. Which gives kind of a nasty grayish-brown appearance.

Fall foliage of PJM Rhododendron 'Balta'

I may have an audition in a couple of weeks. These are the songs that I have to learn, good thing I already know a couple. These are all cover tunes but there will be a chance to do some original music. This sort of some common ground we can get to know each other over.

Angel from Montgomery
Unchain My Heart
The Weight
Bring it on Home
Dead Flowers (how appropriate)
In the Midnight Hour
Wild Horses
Moondance

So forgive me if I am brief over the next couple of days as I hit a heavy practice schedule.

Summer Blooming Azalea (Rhododendron ‘Golden Showers’)

Summer Blooming Azalea
Rhododendron ‘Golden Showers’

I am always surprised that more people don’t grow these wonderful plants. At least a couple always sneak into any garden I design and build, since they are a fantastic way to extend the Azalea season. Their fragrant and colorful blooms come at a time in the garden when I can use the color. Here is a link and excerpt from a page describing these plants:

“Throughout his life, Ed Mezitt explored the possibilities for expanding the seasons of color in the New England landscape. In the 1940s, he began selecting and propagating the more colorful individuals from seed-grown populations of the native plants grown in his parents’ nursery. The major catalyst to his breeding of the Summer Azaleas occurred in the 1950s when he discovered plants of the brightly colored Cumberland and Plumleaf Azaleas, both of which are native to the southern U.S. Like their New England counterparts, these plants flowered in June and July. Although they lacked fragrance, their intense orange, yellow, and red hues offered the possibility for adding a wider range of flower color when hybridized with the native ones.

The June-flowering results of this program include the fragrant, pink flowering ‘Lollipop,’ with its bronze-green new growth and ‘Pink and Sweet,’ which has become one of the most popular. ‘Weston’s Innocence’ is fragrant, pure white in flower, and its foliage becomes a colorful bronzy green in summer. The cultivar ‘Popcorn’ has profuse white flowers with distinctive yellow throats and a fragrance as intense as its native parent. ‘Ribbon Candy’ has spicy-scented pink flowers, each with a distinct white stripe that imparts a unique bicolor effect.”

Written by: R. Wayne Mezitt who is the chairman of Weston Nurseries of Hopkinton, MA.

The rest of the article can be found here:
Article

I like all the varieties mentioned in the article but this one is my favorite because of the multicolored hues of the flowers. They seem to be able to take pretty wet conditions as I have some planted at the edge of one of the ponds on the Estate. The plant pictured is actually in a wide foundation planting at another garden. It has grown to about 6 feet and was originally in a group of three. I moved two of them last year as they were getting a little clustered and you can see that it came through it very well. I keep them well fertilized and that just adds to the glossy deep green of the foliage.



See what I mean about the foliage. It adds a nice backdrop for the flowers.

Rhododendron 'Dexter's Spice'

Rhododendron 'Dexter's Spice'

The Rhododendron Collection is really starting to bloom. I worked most of the day sprucing up the plants and planting some of the new ones (see list below). I loved the way the light played over the flowers and new growth during the day; it was an ever-changing show. I am adding a lot of compost to the beds and fertilizing. I also made a couple of tough choices with the chain saw. Especially in the area that the treetop came down and smashed everything. Besides crushing several Rhododendrons, it sheared a 25-foot Bloodgood Japanese Maple in half. The tree is actually on the mend, it just looks a little funny. A couple of large hybrid Rhodos had been knocked flat and I decided to cut those branches and add some new plants.

The existing Rhododendrons were not as bad as I thought when I made a closer inspection yesterday. There is going to be more flowers than I thought, but it isn’t going to be like a couple of years ago when I had 78 varieties bloom during the season. There aren’t too many rare varieties I think the strength of the collection is that there are so many common varieties planted on the same hillside in New Canaan. There are quite a few that I never knew the name of and couple that I have lost the name. I tagged a lot with embossed Aluminum tape so if you dig around you can find out what it is. I think a few were mismarked from the nursery, too. There is a good assortment of purple, white, pink flowers and especially red. I am not sure how I got so many reds over the years. There are a bunch of blushes, a few species and now two yellows.



I have had ‘Dexter’s Spice’ for 15 years now. I was a little worried about the hardiness rating (-5°F, -21°C) at first but it never suffers winter damage. I have to disagree with the height rating of 6 feet in 10 years, as this is a very vigorous plant. Everything about it is big. The flowers are huge and heavenly scented. It is probably the most fragrant in the collection. The big leaves are a kind of light green and seem to fight off the tip midge and leaf spot very well. It never looks shabby. I think this Rhododendron would be a welcome addition to any garden (except a really small one). The new growth is very interesting, too.

More on Charles Owen Dexter can be found here:
Heritage Museums and Gardens

That looks like a cool place I will have to check it out if I wander up to the Cape this summer.




'Francesca'
Here is another Rhododendron that is just coming into bloom. The buds are a dark, dark red. It is reddest in the whole bunch. The flowers are a little small but the color more than makes up for that. I took quite a few pictures but it is difficult to get he camera to show the actual colors of the Rhododendrons.

I got the following information from:
American Rhododendron Society
A-Z Cultivar List

'Dexter's Spice'
White, Late Midseason, -5°F (-21°C), 6 feet (height in 10 years)
Parentage: Unknown

'Francesca'
Red, Late Midseason, -10°F (-23°C), 6 feet
Parentage: Britannia x Dexter #202

New Plants (multiples of each):
'Capistrano'
Yellow, Late Midseason, -15°F (-26°C), 4 feet (height in 10 years)
Parentage: Hindustan x {[catawbiense, white x (fortunei ssp. discolor x Fabia Group)] x (Russell Harmon x Goldsworth Orange)} x Golden Gala

'Chionoides'
White, Late Midseason, -15°F (-26°C), 4 feet (height in 10 years)
Parentage: ponticum hybrid

'Edith Bosley'
Purple, Midseason, -15°F (-26°C), 5 feet (height in 10 years)
Parentage: Dexter Bosley #1035 x Lee's Dark Purple

'Nova Zembla'
Red, Midseason, -25°F (-32°C), 5 feet
Parentage: Parsons Grandiflorum x hardy red hybrid

'Purpureum Elegans'
Purple, Midseason, -25°F (-32°C), 5 feet
Parentage: catawbiense hybrid or selection

A couple of others that I can't remember or weren't in the data base.

Note: Bloom time and 10-year height information are approximate and can vary dependent on local climate and soil conditions.
Hardiness temperature is also an approximate guideline.

Rhododendron ‘Weston’s Pink Diamond’

Double Flowered PJM Rhododendron Hybrid
Rhododendron ‘Weston’s Pink Diamond’

I have been cleaning off some of my Compact Flash cards so I can shoot some new pictures. Lately I have been picking the photos I want right off the card with Adobe Bridge®. It is a good program once you get used to it but every once in a while my cards get filled up. Today’s plant is from the Estate’s Rhododendron Collection and this picture was taken April 25th. The plant was purchased at Weston Nurseries in Hopkinton, Mass., about 10 years ago. A lot of the plants in the garden came from Weston Nurseries. I found an interesting page on the Rhododendron breeding program Weston here:
rhododendron.org

Here is an excerpt:

The Weston Hybrids
Dick Brooks
Concord, Massachusetts
Source: JARS V53:No.4:p195:y1999

“The tendency toward petaloid or double flowers, which you will recall showed up in the early PJM Group hybrid 'Laurie', has been exploited more recently to give us a whole series of double-flowered lepidotes. First to be introduced, in celebration of the nursery's sixtieth anniversary in 1983, was 'Weston's Pink Diamond', a cross of PJM Group and Rhododendron mucronulatum 'Cornell Pink'. As might be expected from this pedigree, it forms a tall (over six feet at maturity), upright plant, semi-deciduous with spectacularly brilliant fall color. The flowers, produced in mid-April here in eastern Massachusetts, are rose pink, with the stamens converted to an inner circle of petals. 'Weston's Pink Diamond' was followed by a bevy of double-flowered lepidotes of complex ancestry, involving PJM Group, pink mucronulatum, white dauricum, white minus Carolinianum Group and 'Gable's Pioneer'.”

I am adding from:
rhodyman.net glossary

“lepidote: having minute scales. Tiny scales typically cover the undersides of the leaves. Characteristic used to separate the genus Rhododendron into two major groups: lepidotes and elepidotes.”

The Weston page maybe a little to technical for some people’s enjoyable reading but I found it interesting. Maybe because I met some of the people involved and know the nursery. I will never forget the time I went to buy some plants up there and it happened to be the day the PJMs were in pretty much peak bloom. It was an amazing tapestry of purple. Hard to describe, actually, and I did a miserable job. Trust me it was quite a sight.

Here is a link to a britannica.com
britannica.com article
about Rhododendron.

I have a lot of work to do today and the rest of the week. I’ll probably end up working all weekend. I have been thinking a lot about what I am doing and hope to post a little about my thoughts. I need to find a quiet half and hour though and that is not going to be very likely for a while.



I am not sure what this guy was up to in the garden but I got the sense that it was no good. It looks like something munched on the Columbine leaf in this picture. *rolleyes*