Rhododendron... every garden should have some

[David Nicholson]

A day without rain!  We went to Culzean Castle Country Park to see what was in flower.  The Snowdrops are up in their thousands but it will take a few days of sunshine to open them.  Already the Rhododendrons have started flowering.  Christmas Cheer has been out for 5 weeks and the unnamed red flowering variety will soon be in full bloom.  The Camellias have also started to bloom.  When I first started visiting this garden 45 years ago, mid to late March was the flowering time for these plants.  Also we noticed some crocus flowering under the shelter of trees. Again, this is very early for here.
Benmore gardens is open on Thursday for a talk on plant collecting in Japan so we will have to go across for this and have a look around to see what is in flower in the Rhododendron line.

Nice to see Tom. You must be getting Cornish weather up in Ayr.

[ian mcenery]

Doing a little maintenence in the garden I brushed into R moupinense pink form breaking off a small piece. Pam put it in some water and hey presto we have our first flowers of the year. The ones on the main plant are not far behind hope the frost doesn't get em

[Maggi Young]

That is pretty, Ian... well done Pam for thinkingto try it... most folk never imagine that rhodos will open indoors likethat.... and who knows, later you may even put roots on it!

[ian mcenery]

Here is my Rhodo mallotum that I have been trying to get going for a long time.  It is now in a place that suits it but it took me 3 moves to find it alas it may never be the specimen of my imagination but it is still lovely close up.

[mark smyth]

There is a huge plant with similar leaves in an old garden near my house

[johnw]

Ian - re: mallotum And buds!

Be intersting to cross it with bureavii or falconeri v eximeum for super indumentum.

johnw
 

[ian mcenery]

Mark can you photograph it perhaps one of us can name it. This species when properly grown (not by me) is one of the finest foliage plants.

John I have bureavii and a seedling of falconeri I think eximeum has good red indumentum anyway. All wonderful foliage plants but never many flower buds (non yet on the young falconeri) so hybridising may be tricky. Not sure that hybrids always make more attractive plants look at all the 000's of hybrids and only a handful really have any class and these are usually older ones. Just look at the Yak hybrids most can't hold a candle to the parent.

[johnw]

Ian  - mallotum is not hardy here but crossed with bureavii might just go here. Perhaps a mallotum cross that went for even more rusty indumentum might also produce a plant a bit easier to grow than mallotum - it certainly could stand a better root system.

johnw

[TC]

My Rh. cilipense decided to flower yesterday.  Last night we had 3 inches of snow and then a slight frost.  Much to my surprise this morning the snow melted and the flowers were intact.  Tonight it is just on freezing so I expect I will have brown kleenex instead of flowers tomorrow.  I took the picture by flash so I can remember what it looked like.

Yesterday, at Culzean Castle gardens I was surprised at the number of large Rhododendrons ready to burst into flower.  The arboreums were well in flower.  The macabeanums and sino grandes had buds the size of grapefruits and despite the frosts and cold, Christmas Cheer has been in bloom since late December with no ill affects. Things are looking good for a bumper crop of flowers on the west coast this year - saving a late frost.

[Joakim B]

Nice to see some flowers Tom!?
I have bought some nice azaleas (the gardencenter variety ) but much nicer than normal I would say with bigger flowers and nicer colours. I was able to buy from the producer at an expo. They are normally in Mira at the coast of Portugal and do only sell to the public at August so I was lucky to be able to buy through a friend that ha pre-booked the plants.

I also bought a Rh Nova Zembla at Lidl to have in the middle.
I planted the plants in a vase. The vase had soil and sphagnum and with peanut shells as drainage. I was thinking in putting in two tea hybrid roses as well and some Lilly of the valley and some dailies and some Hosta. Would that be OK? I think they all can take a bit damper conditions.
I was also thinking in putting in some lilies and dahlias but they had not been delivered to the store. I now see that the dahlias would not fit anyway. But can I put down some lilies?
The picture is just to give an idea how it looks now and it need to be crowded since I garden on 120*34 cm times two.
Here is also an added picture of the azaleas and camellias from my mother-in-laws garden. The camellias looks a but sad since I used the once that had fallen to the ground but the azaleas I took from the plants.
The top 4 are the new ones.
Sorry about the mess around the first pic it is in the middle of the work so I would like the advice as soon as possible regarding dailies and roses. The answer about lilies are not that urgent but if You know about that as well I am happy about the information. Regarding lilies I am afraid it will be to moist for them. Lillies of gardencenter type.

Thanks in advance
Joakim

[Joakim B]

After thinking a little I realized that the daylilies would not go in since they are mix colours and a big orange would not go so well with the others so I skipped them.
Some nice white lillies could go in and match the Virgo (white rose) and Diamonde Jubile (pink rose) and even a third rose in the front.
The red once are London Barcelona Oklahoma and Flourette none of Them is in the little rose book of Phillips and Rix so any suggestions?
If You think that lilies would have problems with a slightly wetter environ ment let me know. I have only grown them on a drier environment.

All the best
Joakim
 

[VIEIRA]

HELLO  Joakim!
can see photos of my garden and azaleas in my photo album:

http://s277.photobucket.com/albums/kk78/jorgemvv1/

[Joakim B]

Olá Jorge
That was a big album but I think I liked almost all of the plants so we have similar taste.
I did not see so much of the Azaleas so I hope to see them live instead.

It was with the help of Jorge I was able to get the lovly plants above.
I will post picture of them in close up soon.
All the best
Joakim

[Joakim B]

Here are the pictures.
I could not get good colours with flash they looked very off so I tried to take without flash and the colours were better but best colours are in the above pics when the camera is not focusing on one colour.

First one with flash on the pink double where the red is seen in the corner.
Second red that is looking very wrong in colour but are actually a better red than most I have seen.
Third purple that is a nice dark one that did not come out well in the photos
Fourth pin semi-double with nice red dots
Fifth the light pink again

I like them and so does my wife so we are happy with them.

Take care
Joakim

[ashley]

It's a lovely blowy spring day here, and the rhodos - rather ordinary ones - are in full swing:

R. arboreum 
R. pink cv     pre-1950; any suggestions as to what it might be?