February in bloom, and my new favourite

wcutler · Feb 14, 2012

What an amazing day yesterday. The whole garden smelled wonderful. These Trachycarpus fortunei photos, from next to the main Reception Centre entrance, are really just to show the blue sky. And the blue fruits.

Here's Hamamelis mollis, this week's featured plant in the garden. It's off the Kingdon Ward trail below Asian Way.

The Viburnum bodnantense near the side entrance to the Reception Centre is looking excellent, and everyone has been stopping to smell it. I put a link to Douglas Justice's article about these in my December posting; here it is again: Newsletter.

My new favourite are these Rhododendron barbatum, with their great bark and spikey leaf petioles. They're just coming into bloom now, on Asian Way below the Siebold trail.

I didn't get the name for this rhody not too far from the garden entrance, totally in bloom.

wcutler · Mar 6, 2012

Rhododendron barbatum were written up today in the garden's March newsletter.

wcutler · Feb 26, 2013

wcutler said: ↑

Rhododendron barbatum were written up today in the garden's March newsletter (supplied link no longer works).
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I didn't realize those link locations don't hang around. Here's Douglas Justice's text from that newsletter:

UBC Botanical Garden is known for its rhododendrons. A visit to the Garden in March, April or May often centres around the viewing of either rhododendrons or magnolias, as this is the time when the majority of these plants are in bloom. The earliest rhododendrons are often in flower in February, but because of the cool, rainy weather that is typical at this time of the year, flowering lasts for weeks or even months.

There is perhaps no better example of this than Rhododendron barbatum, a rhododendron known as much for its bearded leaf stalks and young shoots (barbatum = bearded), as for its incandescent scarlet flowers that typically open in late February or early March. At first opening, all of the sumptuous red flowers in the truss appear squashed, the throats nearly closed and the stamens barely visible. At this time, nighttime temperatures can hover around freezing and plants are often continually drenched in rain, but the flowers of this high elevation Himalayan species are seldom damaged. As temperatures rise over the next few weeks, the axis of the truss expands and the flowers open, gradually exposing each flower’s characteristic funnel-shape, and the five dark nectar pouches deep within. Even out of flower, R. barbatum is attractive, with its handsome, coarsely veined, dark, dull green leaves, and cinnamon coloured bark, which peels in small papery sheets and shreds. This species requires a cool, woodland setting where it typically grows to 6 or 7 metres after a couple of decades. This is certainly the case in the David C. Lam Asian Garden, where visitors can see a number of larger specimens (near the corner of Lower Asian Way and Stearn Trail) in various stages of bloom.
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I can't edit the original posting, so I'll add the name here of the purple one I didn't have the name for: R. ririei.

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February in bloom, and my new favourite

wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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