Rhododendron Archives - Oceanside Garden

Happy Accident

There are times when I would love to say that something was 100% intentional. Perhaps there was some sub-conscious thing going on, but the most probable explanation is I got lucky. The happy accident became quite clear today when three plants started to shine individually, but it was the combination that was quite remarkable – especially since it involved a combination of bract, leaf and flower – all in a somewhat acid yellow. The picture looking down on the scene does not do it justice.

Anchored in the middle is a flowering dogwood ‘Venus’. While the flowers on this finish up white, they initially take on a yellow color and then grow in size until they are in full ‘bloom’. They have really settled in this year and have more than doubled in size and even more in the number of ‘blossoms’ on them. I put bloom in quotes because it is not actually a flower, instead it uses a few leaves that it colors up to look like a huge flower, when the actual flower in small and insignificant in the middle – yup, this tree is a faker! The good news is that bracts last much longer than petals and so we can expect them to continue their display for at least a month.

To the left is Picea pungens ‘Gebelle’s Golden Spring.’ This is a form of Blue Spruce that puts out this amazing new growth color. Eventually it fades to a blue/green. When Jesse and I saw this in a nursery, we knew it had to be one of our Christmas trees. That was 2017. Just like the dogwood bracts, the leaf color on this lasts for about 6 weeks before fading. This is a dwarf and probably will not get much larger than it currently is – perhaps a few inches per year at most.

The third plant in this happy accident is Rhododendron yakushimanum ‘Gold Prinz’. While it did bloom last year, it put on a much better display this year. Many plants in the upper streambed garden have really settled in this year and this Rhody got to be big enough to participate in this triumvirate. In future years it will get to be even more impressive.

The fact that the color match on these three is so close and happens at the same time makes for an amazing sight that just cannot be properly reflected in the picture. This is an accident that I would love to take claim for, but thank you Mother Nature for your inspiration.

General

Defy the Rules

One of the supposed rules of gardening is to take a look at other gardens and what plants they are having success with, and then emulate them. Sorry – but I call bull s**t. That is what you do if you want to copy them, to create the same garden that everyone else in the neighborhood has. If you are looking for a low maintenance, safe garden, perhaps this is the way to go. Most gardeners do want some reassurance, especially if they think they have brown thumbs – and there is certainly some truth to this.

But don’t think that just because the local grocery store or hardware store or even nursery stocks a plant that it will actually do well in your garden. Most plants are grown by huge national nurseries that are interested in things that will do well across most of the country. Many of those plants are not well suited to our local climate or soil conditions. We live in one of the most “different” climates in the world, one that is drastically different from the majority of this country and is matched only by a few areas in the entire globe!

There are some plants that you will see growing next door – for good reason. Some plants, like Camelia, Rhododendron, Photinia and many others almost grow better here than in their native locations.

The first step I took when I first moved to my Oceanside garden was to plant a few of everything that I have loved and trusted from previous gardens. I agree that this creates a little bit of a mess of a garden – it was not planned to be permanent, it was deigned to learn what does and doesn’t do well here for myself. Some plants may have been suitable for the climate and the soil, but could not handle the grazing of the deer or the winds, others languished because the summer heat was not enough, others wanted more moisture retention than I could provide, or was prepared to provide given that I see water as a precious resource. Sure, some plants just got placed in the wrong places and I have started to move some around, trying to see if they like it better in other places.

But I also want to find out the plants that I can grow that were never possible before. Local nurseries are often not adventurous enough, and who can blame them. They are scratching out a living serving a small community, many of whom want what is growing next door. I do try and support them as much as I can, but I cannot limit myself to what they provide.

Garden tours can be great source of ideas. Of course, many of them are going to be the ones who look like all of the yards next door, but still you may get ideas about grouping, or combinations. In the Tillamook area, Jesse and I went on a tour of gardens put on by the local master gardeners. From one garden, we loved the little stories attached to the major plants they had in the garden – where they rescued it from, the back story of that particular plant. It gave the plants more meaning and showed the thought that went behind them and the history contained within the garden.

Another garden contained a few plants that I had never seen before – now that got the wheels in my mind turning. Interestingly, I think it was the only garden in the tour that was not owned by a master gardener. They had broken all the rules. At first, I wanted to acquire all the plants they had and to emulate the look and feel they had created. But then I stopped and thought about why they were being successful with those plants and what others might be possible given their success.

That led me to consider the plants of Australia and South Africa. I was familiar with some of them from exhibitions in Key Gardens in England and when I found out there was even a slim chance that I could grow some of them I knew I had to try. First step was to find out which ones might be hardy here, and then to quickly find out that almost none of them are available from any nursery in this country. They are still being “discovered” and because they haven’t been heavily hybridized yet, many of them are not considered showy enough or suitable for sufficient numbers of people in this country.

So – I was left with one alternative – find seed abroad and import them. Many of them will take years before they bloom, but I am willing to wait and then to know I will have plants in my yard that will not appear “next door.” But the hunt also shows me that there are some nurseries that really do strive to be different and attempt to bring novel plants to market. I want to give a shout out to Xera nursery in Portland. They have a small retail outlet in SE Portland and do their own growing in Sherwood. They have brought many of their own introductions to the market and have supplied me with several wonderful Grevilleas and Callistemons, as well as other interesting plants. Their online site is also very useful, but do not expect the retail outlet to contain everything they list online – they only bring them in for sale when they are in their prime – meaning they are blooming etc.