This is the mailing from UBCBG Marketing for January: Garden Feature: Rhododendrons January, being January, it's difficult to know what's going to be blooming from one week to the next. Some years, January weather closes in and snow makes the garden a wonderland - not much in bloom - but beautiful nevertheless. January weather can also be comfortably benign, with mild winds off the ocean and only an occasional brush with frost. Many times, we see early rhododendrons open their buds in January. It's usually a very tentative opening when it happens, but if we get a stretch of mild weather, the Chinese Rhododendron ririei, with its beautiful mauve-purple blooms crowning 4 to 5 m tall shrubs, is usually open soon after the New Year. Not long after that, the white Dahurian azalea (R. dauricum f. album) from northeast Asia and the similar, but evergreen Korean azalea (R. mucronulatum), which has bright violet-purple flowers, open their sizable blooms. Even more reliable for flowers in January are the Asian boxwood relatives known as sweet box (Sarcococca confusa) and Christmas box (S. hookeriana). These small broadleaf evergreens don't look much like boxwood, nor smell like them either. The sarcococcas are known for the intensely sweet fragrance of their little white winter-borne flowers. While the flowers might not even be visible, visitors are always aware that these plants are in bloom. Finally, the backbone of winter-flowering shrubs in local gardens has to be ericaceous (Rhododendron family) plants. Rhododendrons have already been mentioned, but several related genera commonly produce flowers in January. These include a number of European natives such as the heaths (Erica species) and strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo). In very mild weather, dusty zenobia (Zenobia pulverulenta), a small shrub from the southeastern US, and cultivars of the Japanese andromeda shrub (Pieris japonica) favour us with their blooms. Both have drooping clusters of honey-scented, bell-shaped flowers. The Garden holds all kinds of surprises for visitors, whatever the weather, so consider a New Year's resolution to enjoy us even more often.
The second and third rhododendrons mentioned are not azaleas botanically. I don't recall seeing "azalea" used as part of their common names prior to this.
Here's the Rhododendron ririei mentioned in that article. It may be that we caught it just in time, before the expected frost tonight. I like Daniel Mosquin's photos of it in the POTD from February 4, 2006. The other rhododendrons mentioned are not in bloom yet, but we did see a few flowers on this Rhododendron vernicosum. And I was very excited to discover Rhododendron strigillosum, with all the barbs of R. barbatum but not the interesting bark. Still, awesome. There are many exciting photos of this species on this Hirsutum.info page.
