Rhododendrons 2016

[Tristan_He]

Thanks Maggi, I'll post closeups of flowers and foliage so you can confirm.

I've lived here for about 15 years now and the plant was not much smaller when I arrived, so I think it's quite old. It's not in an ideal location (poor dry soil) which maybe encourages flowering at the expense of growth.

[Roma]

Some Rhodos flowering.  A bit of frost damage but not as bad as last year.
Group photo
Rhododendron hippophaeoides 'Haba Shan'
Rhododendron augustinii, flowering mainly on the north side and none on the top third of the plant.  It got really hammered in the 2010/11 winter but grew away very well after pruning.  I only remember it flowering all over about once.  I saw it at the Cruickshank Botanic Garden on Friday ( from the same batch of cuttings ) looking very well.

[Roma]

Rhododendron augustinii in the Cruickshank Botanic Garden

[TC]

We went out in the garden this morning and noticed about a dozen flower trusses from our KGV Loderi lying on the ground.  I realised that it must have been the screaming easterly gale yesterday as we were leaving for Glasgow.  I went to look at one of my Augustinii's and found it lying at 45° and wobbling about.  I tried to gently push it back up and heard a crack.  It had snapped off at ground level !
Easterly gales are rare here but do the most damage...as I have occasionally found out.

I felt gutted as it was one of my favourite plants but as they say, it gave me a planting opportunity.  A Cinnabarinum I bought last week has now found a home.

The Kurume Azalea is about 40 years old.

Problem with the srgc resizer. My Augustinii came out at the correct size but was 328 kb so my post bounced.  How do I sort this ?

I had to go in to Photoshop to effect a reduction in pixels.

[johnw]

We went out in the garden this morning and noticed about a dozen flower trusses from our KGV Loderi lying on the ground.  I realised that it must have been the screaming easterly gale yesterday as we were leaving for Glasgow.  I went to look at one of my Augustinii's and found it lying at 45° and wobbling about.  I tried to gently push it back up and heard a crack.  It had snapped off at ground level !

Tom-  I'd bet that augustinii comes roaring back, they can put on tremendous shoots.

john

[TC]

No, I dug up the roots and binned them.  At my age I don't have time to try and resurrect the plant.  It was in the wrong place. At least, I have an Augustinii exbury of about the same vintage and that is doing fine -next to  a 6 foot fence and protected from the East winds.

On second thoughts I will rescue the roots and what is left of the stem and put them in a large pot filled with composted bark and see what happens.

I had an Edgeworthii cut to the ground in severe frost.  It was taken out and planted in an unheated green house in the plunge sand.  To my amazement, it started growing again from the base in the spring.  I planted it out again in Autumn and of coursewe had our coldest late Winter frosts for years.  By this time it had given up the ghost.

[Maggi Young]

Problem with the srgc resizer. My Augustinii came out at the correct size but was 328 kb so my post bounced.  How do I sort this ?

I had to go in to Photoshop to effect a reduction in pixels.

Not sure, Tom - perhaps a general resize to reduce MB from the original?  Hard when so many cameras make such huge files these days.

[johnralphcarpenter]

If you look at jrc's picture and to the leaf in the left fore corner, the one with the big hole on the right margin, it could very well be schlipp if it developed properly.  Maybe he can find one good leaf and that will end the puzzle especially of it's somewhat obovate.  Having said that judging from what I see of the flower it's a rather poor expression of this fine species.

john

Here are the leaves.

[johnralphcarpenter]

Rhododendron rubiginosum.

[johnw]

Here are the leaves.

And that would be schlippenbachii.

john

[johnw]

A few from this morning.

Rhododendron iteophyllum
Rhododendron  dauricum 'Compactum Roseum'
Rhododendron  mucronulatum v. taquetii aka 'Cheju'
Rhododendron primuliflorum (Glendoick's deep pink)
Rhododendron recurvoides x proteoides

john

[TC]

Maggi
All the other pictures re-sized within the limits except the Augustinii which came in at 328kb from 2.9 Mb jpeg.  The others using the down-sizer were the same original size at 2.9 Mb  and they were about 150Kb when downsized.  It makes it awkward not knowing if they will take or not to the required size.
I can make them any size using Photoshop but it's a more involved process.

[Maggi Young]

Tom, I know that much larger filesizes can and do turn into "forum-sized" pix, so I really don't know what caused that hiccup. These things happen!

[Tristan_He]

Maggi (and others), here are some closeups of the yellow Rhody I posted earlier for confirming ID. Based on the photo in the Glendoick catalogue, I don't think it's Chikor Maggi but would be interested in your opinion as I am certainly no expert.

[johnw]

Definitely not 'Curlew' which, as Maggi says, shows the influence of ludlowii with its roundish campanulate flowers.  I say 'Chikor' - a bit of a stinker to grow well - or 'Chiffchaff'.  Google 'Chikor' if you want a headache, some shots show pink in the petals which we've not reliably seen here, also 'Chikor' is a better yellow than shown.  The foliage of 'Chikor' has a rusty cast due to a preponderance of scales on the leaves.  'Chiffchaff' seems a better bet.

john