Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Specific Families and Genera => Rhododendron and other Ericaceae => Topic started by: johnw on April 19, 2008, 10:58:53 PM
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Tom - Thanks so much for the wonderful pictures from Benmore. The R. grande is supremely beautiful and those skunk cabbages are a joy. The latter seem late here though the flower buds are just moving now that the weather has warmed up.
Attached is the Ludlow & Sherriff #2847 thomsonii just beginning to open yesterday in the south where it was 21c, so, in some regards, we are not too far behind . Also what I think is an auriculatum with an exceptional habit - from Peter Wharton's 1994 Guizhou seed collection. Finally I found 2 buds on a 6ft rex Berkley x rex Quartz (again 1994) - this may well be the first rex to ever flower east of Canadian Rockies. The buds are on the north side of the plant just to confound the experts.
johnw
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John, I'd like to say I had ANY rhody about to bloom but who am I kidding! However, at the Bot. Garden (Memorial University of Newfoundland Botanical Garden) our coldhouse is warmer than outside and the first rhodies have opened probably a month earlier than those outside. Here is Madison Snow and (impeditum X moupinense)...I am dubious about that hybrid. What do you think John?
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re: impeditum x moupinense
Todd - It's certainly hard to see any moupinense there, the leaves are closer in size to impeditum than the mean of the two species. And yet I would be hard pressed to explain the pink flower, pinker than I remember. What other species would give that pink and cross with impeditum. Hmm? The flower size is not intermediate either.
Coincidental than you should post that as I talking to the hybridizer Cpt. Steele tonight. I mentioned that moupinense itself seemed fully hardy in the south here, unfortunately mine is a white one. The impeditum x moupinense came up in the conversation as I lost mine and he lost his back-ups, both caused by shade. He asked if I could round up a few cuttings in Newfoundland!
Madison Snow looks great and may be one of the very best Leach selections, strange as he was noted for his elepidotes.
johnw
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(impeditum X moupinense)...I am dubious about that hybrid. What do you think John?
Todd - I'm still pondering... I think of 'Ramapo' which is fastigiatum x carolinianum or the reverse with leaves not that much bigger than fastigiatum. So maybe it is possible the parentage of this hybrid is correct. The leaves certainly have a lustre we don't associate with impeditum, from moupinense perhaps. Here's another thought, impeditum sold, in North America at least, are in fact fastigiatum. I wonder if Steele had the true species back then as it would have been quite a rarity. Maybe fastigiatum x moupinense is more likely.
johnw
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The habit of the hybrid in question is quite like Ramapo, expect the flowers are pinkish, so maybe Steele did indeed use fastigiatum.
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And down here in the Southern Hemisphere I have Rhododendron lineariifolium flowering at the moment. Its cool having a Rhododendron flowering here amongst the autumn blaze.
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Nice Rhododendrons
Here are some cultivars only two.
John Walter and an unknown lilac. The lilac one is not particularly funny but is getting better now with more acid soil.
I lost (Christmas) Cheer and from pics seen here it was a loss.
To compensate this loss I bought 3 nice Rhods at Lidl!!! They looked nice and cost 6€ so I got two Cunningham and one Nova Zembla if memory serves me right. Two whites and one red. The "flower buds" where growth buds so no flowers this year I think. Maybe on the Cunningham since it is often a repeat bloomer in Sweden and I hope even more so here in Portugal.
Here is the John Walter I wrote Walker so had to fix it.
and the standard lilac.
Kind regards
Joakim
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Now then, tried to make some posts yesterday but the Forum Gremlin was working to a go slow and kept kicking me off! Here's hoping for an easier time today......
I'll try posting the pix first and edit later to get the text in :-\ :-X
An old and reliable hybrid, R. 'Blue Tit'
A williamsianum hybrid, 'Cowslip'
'Cowslip' has pale creamy yellow flowers with a pretty salmon pink tinge
One of Cox' bird named hybrids, 'Crane'... an interesting choice of name since I think of Cranes as being tall, thin birds, and this is quite a chubby little plant!
'Crane' flowers are a bit more yellow than the photos show... primrose yellow, almost.
This is a hybrid which never fails to cover itself in flowers and even has a scent on warmer days...it is
'Dora Amateis' which is a minus var minus x ciliatum cross. The R. ciliatum blood is where the scent comes from.
The view to the front door is a bit congested!
Here are the buds of a R. edgeworthii x lindleyi cross.
R. impeditum 'Moerheimii'
This is a plant which won many prizes, before it grew too big to be lifted and carried in a pot... R. orthocladum var. microleucum.... small clusters of tiny white flowers... this plant is about thirty years old and still only a couple of feet high.
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so, we seem to be in working order here so on I go.....
another edit to include the text....
R. 'Phalarope'.... this tends to sprawl a bit, but is still very pretty, making a light, open display.
A view across a very congested bed of little rhodos.
A view across to some larger rhodos, incl. R. faberi ( the one showing white flowers in this shot)
A view past R. 'Phalarope'
Another view to the front of the house
A small digression....While I was out "snapping" the BD was leaving for his swim..... this is the west driveway.....
A view looking back up the west drive from the road... lots of bulbs living happily in the seemingly hostile environment of the rock hard and dry driveway.
R. yakushimanum x recurvoides
R. 'Yellowhammer'... a good plant to force flowers for Christmas decorations... grows quite tall, over six feet with us , but has dainty foliage and the charming yellow bells are only about 2 cms long.
'Yellowhammer' is a R. sulfurem x flavidum var flavidum cross.
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some more:
R. aff. tatsienense, coll. Roy Lancaster
A bud of R. bureauvii
A view up through the branches of R. bureauvii
I think this is R. campylogynum " plum Branklyn"
Close up of R. ciliatum
The buds of the sturdy yellow, 'Curlew'
The deepest pink bud!
Two shots of the flowers of 'Dora Amateis'
A fuzzy look through the flowers of R. primuliflorum to 'Phalarope' beyond
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what have we got next?
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Two shots of R. faberi flowers
R. 'Ptarmigan
and a closup , showing some weather damage
R. hippophaioides... lovely rounded clusters of bright flowers held in a neat ruff of leaves on a plant about four feet high ( 120cms) after twenty-five years.
This is a seedling, leaves about 6 to 7 cms long, six feet tall, omly just starting to give flowers... cannot think what it is called!!
R. keiskei, a wee shoot through other foliage
A R. lepidotum hybrid
view of bed, to SSW
R. nitidulum Omiense KR185
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and.....
Rhododendron saluenense
Another I cannot remember the name of.. :-[
R. sulfureum
R. taliense x lacteum... not flowering very fully this year.
Two closer shots of the taliense x flowers
The tiny R. cephalanthum crebreflorum
A view across to SSW with R. aff tatsienense
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Maggi when You go You go for real :)
Lovely bunch of pics.
When I saw "blue tit" it is not blue at all?! It resembels a lot the one I have as unknown "lilac".
Hope to see more but I do not have more here.
Kind regards
Joakim
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to complete these April photos, here are some Yak shots!
Two pix of R. yakushimanum buds. This rhood is superb in it's own right and also makes a great parent.
Two shots of R. yakushimanum x recurvoides.. these flowers have good deep pink buds and hold the flower colour well as they open, unlike quite a lot of pink rhodos.
Two shots of R. yakushimanum x tsariense
Joakim.... you are right... the plant is not "blue" at all.... but then again, real cranes ( birds) are not yellow ???
The flowers are tiny, only about 1.5 cms long and the whole bush is about 100cms high by 150cms across after nearly forty years.
Your "lilac" is a large flowered type, which looks a lot like a R. ponticum type to me.
By the way, Friends, apologies for mixing metric and imperial measurements in an earlier post!! Six feet = 1.80m
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Joakim, I seldom get time when the weather is nice enough to go out with the camera... I was just lucky on Monday!
The weather often conspires to spoil flowers before I get the chance to capture them, too :( :P
This year I am going to try to get shots of as many as possible, and of their buds and foliage stages, also... doubt that I will manage to do that, there are more than 350 rhodos here, a number which absolutely astounds me, given the size of the garden :o... but I will make an effort!
Here's a shot showing the surface of the aromatic leaves on this little rhodo which has lovely big buds on.....again, cannot remember what it is meantime!! It usually comes back to me eventually!! :P :-\
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another little rhodo with big personality in leaves and buds... R. impeditum
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Maggi thanks for the input about the lilac one. Yes it is bigger than 1.5 cm long flowers but the bush is smaller than Yours :).
It has fewer flowers though so You win by a landslide :) .
Generally there is a clue I thought I heard somewhere always, but with the word Blue tit one would not directly associate with that flower.
BTW the forum is slow as asphalt to day. Maybe only for me?
Kind regards
Joakim
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Wonderful rhodies, Maggi!! It is truly amazing how many you manage to have in your garden. I particularly like Cowslip!
Are there pictures missing from message 13?
Many more rhododendrons in my part of Portugal, compared with Joakim's area.
Forum slow one minute and as fast as normal the next minute, as far as I can see.
Chloë
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I have just been watching the Beechgrove Garden on BBC Scotland. They were doing a spot on the Rhododendrons at the RBGE.
It was mentioned that this was a poor flowering season with many varieties practically without blooms. Because of the cold wet summer last year, many plants failed to make flowering buds, although vegetative growth was O.K. This echos what I have been seeing at Benmore and Brodick. Some of the large leafed varieties have no flower buds at all. I had a look at my Loderi and there is not one flower bud to be seen. This will be the first time in 8 years it has not flowered. It does not seem to have affected the smaller varieties.
One happy note for me, my cinnabarinum has flowered for the first time. I took the attached pictures five minutes ago at 2035 before the next downpour starts.
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Thanks, Chloë. Yes, there are six pix missing from post 13, but I have added them there now! They must have got dropped off somehow when the Forum was being awkward earlier. :-[
Do go back and see them... they are crackers!
Forum is slow again at the moment... do hope Fred can find a solution....he has already fed the hamster that works the wheel extra food!
'Cowslip' is a nice thing.... two tone without being garish. It is a williamsianum x wardii var wardii hybrid, raised by Lord Aberconway and registered in 1927.
Tom, I regret that the weather from last summer has indeed affected the flowering on quite a few of our dwarf rhodos, as well as the bigger chaps.
Lovely bloom on your R. cinnarbarinum... I had to destroy ours because they were hosts to the powdery mildew.... since they were removed we have had less bother. It was very sad to lose them , though.
These others you show look just fine.....great colour to cheer the garden. The 'Blue Diamond' looks right.....thought here that is another that was scrapped because it took mildew all the time.
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Maggi, in winter you told that your Rhodo's would recover, after I questioned this when you showed pictures of them with those hanging leaves.
Now I can see it myself. It's remarkable how much strength these plant have.
Fantastic!
BTW, you must have had a very nice day, because the "Aberdeen Grey" walls, as I remember from two years ago, even look whitish.
Almost mediterranean. ;D 8) ;)
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Maggi great to see spring is busting out all over ;D Love that edgworthii a well grown plant indeed 8)
Tom nice to see that cinnabarinum in flower . The only one of this type I have in flower at present is a hybrid Alison Johnstone. I will try and get a piccy in the morning
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Wow Maggi ! What a display and collection! I still have none open outside...maybe late May. My peak is mid-late June. In the hoophouse at work we have a couple open...I'll try to get pics this week.
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Maggi - You really do have the bug.
Is your keiskei x spiciferum Waxbill or Wheatear? I keep mixing the two up.
Love the omeiense, just getting that one going here, microleucum and that very special impeditum.
I'm partial to those lepidotes.
johnw
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Maggi - You really do have the bug.
Is your keiskei x spiciferum Waxbill or Wheatear? I keep mixing the two up.
Love the omeiense, just getting that one going here, microleucum and that very special impeditum.
I'm partial to those lepidotes.
johnw
The Keiskei x spiciferum has no name. I bought it from Glendoick several years ago as an un-named introduction. It even says this on the label
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Maggi - You really do have the bug.
Is your keiskei x spiciferum Waxbill or Wheatear? I keep mixing the two up.
Love the omeiense, just getting that one going here, microleucum and that very special impeditum.
I'm partial to those lepidotes.
johnw
The Keiskei x spiciferum has no name. I bought it from Glendoick several years ago as an un-named introduction. It even says this on the label
Tom - I got my two plants at Glendoick as well. Both I believe are keiskei x spiciferum and understood they had both been named. One appeared to be tender and expired - that may have been Wheatear. There certainly could be others. I can't say I'm fond of these striped-flowered hybrids but would make an exception for Ginny Gee since it is such a good-doer and a flowering machine.
keiskei x pemakoense by Barry Starling is just coming into bloom here. He recommends a bit of shade as it has a tendency to bud too heavily which obscures the foliage.
Barry is tentatively scheduled as a speaker at our rhodo chapter this autumn which is rather exciting.
johnw
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Here are a couple of piccies of R Alison Johnstone in flower at present. It is a cinnarbarinum concatennans x yunnanense hybrid
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I have attached the label and this is as much as I know about it. Ginny Gee always does well, as the picture shows.
Another dwarf I bought from Glendoick last week is Rh. Proteoides. It looked interesting and again, I bought it on a whim. I have now found out that it is grown for its shape and foliage as it takes 40 years to flower !!!! That's me well and truly stuffed ! Maybe I can pass it on to my grandchildren.
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Pictures failed to load.
Ian,
I wish I had a garden big enough to plant larger rhododendrons. Thirty years ago, I had Lady Chamberlain, Concatennans and Cin. Roylei but a severe winter in the mid 70's did for them along with Praecox ( lowest temperature was -20c and it was below freezing for weeks )
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Tom my lady chamberlain was cut to the ground probably in the same winter but came back from the base and I now have 2 forms of this but they are leggy although the flowers are wonderful. I also have a couple of cinnarbarinum species with different colours. Seems the botanists have labelled these as different though I saw loads of cinnabarinum in Bhutan last year in all the colours you can imagine from red through orange to yellow all growing side by side
Like the proteoides always think the foliage ones are nice
Here is another favourite R Loderi King George the individual flowers are over 6 inches across and I'm sorry you can't catch the scent lovely
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I have attached the label and this is as much as I know about it. Ginny Gee always does well, as the picture shows.
Another dwarf I bought from Glendoick last week is Rh. Proteoides. It looked interesting and again, I bought it on a whim. I have now found out that it is grown for its shape and foliage as it takes 40 years to flower !!!! That's me well and truly stuffed ! Maybe I can pass it on to my grandchildren.
Tom
Lucky you snagging that proteoides. You may not have to wait so long. Have you seen Jens Birck's album? The link is post under that topic under rhododendron. Go to the Taliensia folder and click on it. He has a dazzling array of prots from cw seed. Some have bloomed already.
Lovely Ginny Gee and it seems to be a universal good-doer. Good to hear there are more keiskei x spiciferums coming out of Glendoick. Got mine in 2001 and they were named shortly thereafter.
johnw - +5c and overcast
johnw
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Here's that link again, for good measure:
http://picasaweb.google.dk/birck.denmark or www.picasaweb.google.dk/birck.denmark
I too was going to say that you may not have to wait so long, Tom........I was going to tell you that I waited twenty years.... and then it died :'( :-X :(
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Here's that link again, for good measure:
http://picasaweb.google.dk/birck.denmark or www.picasaweb.google.dk/birck.denmark
I too was going to say that you may not have to wait so long, Tom........I was going to tell you that I waited twenty years.... and then it died :'( :-X :(
Just so you don't feel so bad Maggi, my oldest and best proteoides died the day after Jens Birck left here. I think it must have sustained root damage from rocking about or being grazed by falling limbs in 172km winds - Hurricane Juan the day Jens arrived here.
I do have some young ones coming along. I'll be 100+ years old by the time they flower.
johnw