My wife and I are new to the world of gardening, but have taken it on with a fervor. Being "newbies", it is always nice to have some successes from which to build our confidence and tackle new projects. We have found that rhododendrons virtually guarantee success and, being originally from Nova Scotia, we appreciate the ease of growing these wonderful plants on the West Coast. Below is a beautiful, warm orange/red blossom from a rhododendron which we recently planted:
Looks very like Azalea 'Gibraltar' A real beauty The rhododendrons and azaleas are magnificent at this time of year
Sam, Thanks - we lost the original identification tag when we went looking today, so we very much appreciate your identifying it for us. It has opened even more blooms and truly is a magnificent colour - we placed it right next to our wisteria and the contrasting colours are outstanding.
We took this one yesterday but it fails to do the colour contrast justice - however, it does give a feel for what the combination will look like with a few more years growth. Wisteria truly is a beautiful climber, it seems to literally glow in the morning light.
If you didn't buy 'Gibraltar' it may not be that one, many Knaphill-Exbury azaleas sold here (in the past at least, haven't noted current situation) aren't even named clones but rather unnamed seedlings sold as part of a mix. Maybe compare yours with labeled specimens of 'Gibraltar' elsewhere before adopting that name.
Thanks Ron, we obtained these two (there is an identical one with matching wisteria on the other side of the gate entry as well) before we learned to keep all the identification tags for future reference. They were picked up at the Art Knapps garden centre in Comox Valley which are a big enough outfit that they could not identify this particular plant by description alone... We have been looking around at any that have a similar colour, but so far there have always been something distinguishing the other plants from our two... be it the flower structure; leaf size / shape; etc. There is a local "Rhodo Guy" of whom we had hoped to contact to help clearly identify this rhododendron for us.
