Rhododendron... every garden should have some

[johnw]

Can anyone name this one?  It is flowering now, later than the others which are nearly over.  The flowers are small but they are scented.
Another of the larger flowered azaleas

Roma  - Are the flowers sticky?  Might very well be pure viscosum but these late fragrant whites are difficult to i.d., they hybridize so readily, especially with arborescens and vice-versa and the flowering of both can over-lap.  Best to get seed from an area where on one species is native.

john

[Roma]

Thanks, John.  The flowers are sticky.  I've no idea where it originated.  I propagated a number of deciduous azaleas from cuttings at the Cruickshank Botanic Garden many years ago when the bed they were growing (for a very long time) in was redone.  I took home some which were surplus.  The only label I remember seeing was 'Freya' a pink double.  Some were old small flowered hybrids including 3 or 4 doubles and others had big flowers.
 

[David Nicholson]

Rhododendron viscosum pictured earlier this week in Giardino Botanica Alpinia on Lake Maggiore, Northern Italy. The garden is located some 803 metres up Monte Mottarone between Stresa and Baveno and has enviable views over the Lake Maggiore, Lake Orta and the Swiss Alps more pics, as soon as I get a chance to do some re-sizing, in the Places to Visit thread.

[johnw]

Roma /David - stems should be smooth and stamens should be greenish white not red for viscosum so looks as if these are hybrids.  These American azaleas are a minefield as they are very promiscuous which I'm sure will elicit a comment.

I have 4 plants grown from the same seed lot and only one matches the description perfectly.  Apparently there were no other species in the area where the seed was collected so the bees must be finding arborescens somewhere in the state in which it was collected.

john

[TC]

Visited Logan Gardens today to catch up with the late flowering Rhods.    Maddenii and Crassums in flower - some almost over and oters still with buds to open.  These two caught my eye in the nursery beds.  When large enough, they will be moved,  The Maddenii had a red flush unlike any other in the garden.  The Dalhousiae rhabdotum always looks interesting with the red stripes on the petals

[Lesley Cox]

I went on boringly about Rh. 'Elizabeth Lockhart' and have at last found my pics of the lady, taken in Angie's Banchory garden. I've searched for this beauty in NZ but it doesn't seem to be here at all yet I know a plant was brought back from the UK in 1981. I brought it myself but it was for a friend and she not long after divorced, moved to Australia and goodness knows what happened to the rhodo.

Anyway, here she is and another which neither Angie, nor Maggi could name off hand. I certainly couldn't. Any suggestions?

[Graham Catlow]

Anyway, here she is and another which neither Angie, nor Maggi could name off hand. I certainly couldn't. Any suggestions?
[/quote]


I think the unknown is probably Rhododendron GRAZIELA.
I have one that looks the same and I suspect Angie will have purchased it from Glendoick as I did.

[Maggi Young]

Yes, that is Graziela - we saw it in Vojtech Holubec's garden too- just had a mind block - must have been the heat in Czechia 
It is a a very smart rhodo, big flowers and good foliage.

[Lesley Cox]

Another one for me to look for here. The foliage is somewhat unexpected with those buds.

[zvone]

Hi!

Look beautiful Rock Rhododendron Garden from Mount Koralpe:







MORE  PICTURES: https://picasaweb.google.com/111021317308786555031/AKoralpeJunij2013Mz#


Best Regards!  zvone

[Hoy]

Hi zvone, your pictures are always marvellous!
Here is a N America species flowering in my garden now - not showy but I like it: Rh albiflorum.

[zvone]

Hi zvone, your pictures are always marvellous!
Here is a N America species flowering in my garden now - not showy but I like it: Rh albiflorum.

Thank's Hoy!

Beautiful Flover, beautiful photo! Also I would enjoy next to such flower. 
Also your pictures, that are sending them, they are beautiful. I am looking at them happily. Thank's!
Still forward successfully!

Best Regards!  zvone

[johnw]

David  - re: that "viscosum" at Giardino Botanica Alpinia

Don Hyatt, the expert in these matters, is just back from the Appalchians and says this:

"Sure doesn't look like R. viscosum to me.  Could have viscosum in the background, but it looks more like a hybrid.  With that pink color and strong blotch, it could be a viscosum-prunifolium hybrid if it flowers late in the season. Both of those species often grow in the same general area and can bloom about the same time, depending upon the R. viscosum form.  The bees do get around.   Did they give the time of bloom?  With that glaucous foliage, I'd also be suspicious of R. atlanticum possibly being in the mix.  We have seen forms of arborescens with glaucous leaves, too.
 
It is hard to find isolated stands of species in the wild so that we can be sure there is no cross pollination.  People often assume that seed collected in the wild will be true to type and that may not be so. Recently we have been trying to hand pollinate selected forms in the wild and go back in the fall to collect seed.  That way we can be sure of the purity.
 
In the areas we usually go, we don't really see any big stands of viscosum, just occasional plants among the others.  When we were in Scotland, I pointed out to Davidian that the plants they had in the Edinburgh Botanical Garden labeled as R. canescens were really hybrids between R. periclymenoides and R. prinophyllum.  They may key out to canescens with long floral tubes and glandular hairs, but the cinnamon spice fragrance was a dead give away for prinophyllum.  We see a lot of those in the wild where those populations intersect.  Herbarium specimens seem to lose their fragrance over time. ;-)"

john

[johnw]

Aside from the late evergreen azaleas this Vireya  - St. Valentine - braves this afternoon's hideous humidity.   Got this plant in 1986 so it is truly dwarf.         johnw       -----------   27.6c, 67% humidity, feels like 36c.        Severe thunderstorm, wind & large hail watch in effect for this afternoon and evening. 

[johnralphcarpenter]

Why is my Rhododendron 'Curlew' flowering in August?!!