Rhodos, Feeling the chill...

[Maggi Young]

The following is a series of shots of Rhododendrons showing various degrees of response to a cold night, 1st to 2nd of February 2008, here in Aberdeen. When I went out to take these pix at 9am, it was still minus 7 degrees C.... had been down to minus ten in the night..... got up as far as three degrees later in the day.... pretty chilly day. We haven't been much below minus 10  this year though we have had minus 19 for more than a week on previous occasions.
 Anyhow... 9am, minus 7 c but quite bright, so out I go to take some photos of my poor rhodos, who are mostly feeling very cold indeed... they are the ones who recognise cold and combat it by rolling up their leaves tighly, if they find it exceptionally cold, they fold them down, too, so the leaves look like cigars stuck to the banches. If a rhodo is a tough cookie then it keeps its leaves pretty much as normal, though whether this truly shows guts or just stupidity is questionable
 So.. on with the pics....

 cold R.  auriculatum beside R. ponticum, who isn't much bothered by the cold
 chilly boys.... Yakushimanum x recurvoides and R. makinoi
 R. cilpinense  happy enough
 auriculatum close
catawbiense
 decorum close
R.   Dora Amateis not feeling  too bad
 cold elegantulum whole
 cold fuzzy youngster by catawbiense
 cold large leaf  bullate youngster

[Maggi Young]

some more.... I apologise if closeups appear out of synch with the whole plant, or if there are duplicates... 

cold rolled rhodos
 cold spotty Moonshine Bright
 cold view.
  R. faberi
 frost on Fuji no Matsui
R.  rex fictolacteum... note how small the  leaves are here in Aberdeen. When he was younger his leaves were a better size but since he put his head above the shelter of the hedge, they have got smaller every year... now they are barely larger than the R. bureavii to his right! To the far right is the unfazed R. Cilpinense .
R. decorum
Frozen  R. decorum wide shot
 frozen Ledum
 frozen  but not bothered!

[Maggi Young]

and.......
frozen  but not "bovvered" littley
 R.   thomsoni  McBeath
 
 Very  unhappy  R. pingianum KR150
 R.wardii pur album very cold but hybrid rhodo 'May Day' is okay
 frozen wide shot
 frozen  sparse youngster
 R.  elegantulum whole plant
 
 R. yakushimanum x tsariense, left, R. elegantulum, right

[Maggi Young]

I'm still at it...

R. pachysanthum and buds, feeling okay
R. pseudochrysanthum RV select
R. rex fictolacteum and  bureavii unhappy
 rolled bureavii close
 rolled but not folded R. Grumpy leaves
 rolled makinoi fuji no matsui
 snow-  ice-- who cares?
  Reliable red hybrid ' May Day'... only just feeling slighty chilly .
Looking up in frozen R. pingianum

[Maggi Young]

Taken the same morning, a few other plants in the light snow
Crocus sieberi atticus. a few early buds showing
Helleborus x eric smithii buds
Hardy hellebore
"downed" snowdrop buds
a view inside a glass house
Tropaeolum tricolorum making escape attempt from glass house

[johnw]

Yeegads, I had no idea such cold would stay for so long in Scotland. And yet you are growing what we would call some very tender species.



We have not been below -15/-16c this year here in Halifax but had 2 x 2 day stretches where the thermometer stuck at -14c. And that with no snow cover.


johnw - -5c at 12.45pm and 10cm of freshly fallen snow overnight.

[Maggi Young]

though we have had minus 19 for more than a week on previous occasions.

That time we never went above minus 12 the whole week and it was minus 19 every night.... thankfully we don't get often 

The very large leaved rhodos don't much care for my garden in the east, though this is not to say that I have a friend less than a mile away with a sheltered garden who has some very good specimens of larger leaved chaps. My R. Rex fictolacteum started out with respectable enough leaves, at least  45 cms long when he was young but, as I say, now he has grown above the protection of the privet hedge, his leaves are now down to only about 20 cms... poor soul, I hope he forgives me.

"Littlies".... i.e.  all the dwarf, small leaved rhodos like life in the east... they take full sun... or what passes for it in these parts... just a delight in any garden.

I suppose we do grow a few that we consider to be marginally hardy.... ciliatum, edgeworthii ( & a cross or two) sulfureum, megeratum.. are some that come to mind.
Trouble is, I find that my memory for names is fading faster than my waistline so I can stand by a plant I've known for ever and have a complete blank about what it is called.

[art600]

though we have had minus 19 for more than a week on previous occasions.

Trouble is, I find that my memory for names is fading faster than my waistline so I can stand by a plant I've known for ever and have a complete blank about what it is called.

Maggi
The cold can do that.  Hope you had a hot cup of chocolate waiting for you

[David Nicholson]

the words 'brass' 'monkey' 'spherical' and 'objects' spring to mind. I just couldn't cope with those kinds of temperatures these days, I sieze up once it gets to positive single figures!

[Lvandelft]

Maggi
The cold can do that.

Only the cold    

Maggi, makes me curious how for instance the nr. 1 an nr. 3 of the 2nd batch look now.
In these pictures they look not very good.

[Maggi Young]

Luit, I agree, they can look really bad at this time... it is frightening for new rhodo growers to see this I am sure.
It is one of the many wonders of these plants which so fascinate me that they are able to make these reactions to the climate and then, when the days improve, they are soon restored to normal appearance.
Some can return to normal as soon as the temperature rises a few degrees over a couple of days, others will unroll slowly, taking their time to recover.

This week, while there are cold winds, there is not the deep frost and they are almost all looking perfectly normal and healthy! 

[Lvandelft]

Luit, I agree, they can look really bad at this time... it is frightening for new rhodo growers to see this I am sure.

Maggi, Rhodo's are really remarkable plants. I never could plant them in the soil here so a know
very little about them.
Seeing those pictures I wouldn't give anything for them,
Here one would need tons of peat in very wide holes of at least 1 m deep, but the groundwater runs
at about 50 - 60 cm. bringing the lime in, so in a few years they would starve away.

[Maggi Young]

Today, 24th February, we got a maximum temperature of 15 degrees c .... here  are a few pix to show the cold and unhappy rhodos from 2nd February looking very much better:

R. auriculatum
bulbs beginning to flower
R. 'Cilpinense' opeing her flowers... she wasn;t really feeling the cold at the start of the month....if the blooms get much frost now, though, they will be destroyed.
Here are the snowdrops which were flat to the ground on the 2nd Feb. sitting up happily
R. faberi, opening up the leaves again
R. 'Grumpy.... on the 2nd, his leaves were rolled tight, but still held outwards, not folded down... now look at him! Much happier, though still 'Grumpy', of course! 
Reticulate Irises looking blue!
R. pingianum KR150... : still feeling a bit cold but a lot better!
R. wardii puralbum... unrolled

[Maggi Young]

And just a few more....
 R. rex fictolacteum and R. bureavii... after a nice day in the sun

 R. rex fictolacteum , R. bureavii and R. 'Cilpinense'
 These are the young bullate leaved rhodo, R. yakushimanum x tsariense and R. elegantulum as they appear today... these are the ones that Luit thought looked in a really bad way!
Wonderful how they can react and adapt to the changes, isn't it?


one last pic, just for Hans J.   this is Eranthis 'Guinea Gold'... the sun had already gone off the trough when I came home to make the photo, so the flowers have closed again!

[art600]

Maggi

What is that wonderful reticulate iris - on my wants list.