Pilchuck Pollinator

Maddenii ssp. Maddenii, in the best forms has a pink/purple base to the trumpets on the outside and a yellow throat on the inside.  The spectacular flowers are up to 12 cm. (5 in.) long.  The hardier subspecies crassum, we can grow outside, and being a June bloomer it is a good choice for even the small garden.  It will get to be quite tall but can be kept to an upright shape so the area it needs is relatively small.  Odoriferum  and manipurense were species under the old classification but are now reduced in rank to forms of crassum.  I still like to keep the old names and grow plants with these labels on them.  They have not bloomed for me yet.

One of the most surprising and crowd stopping flowers on a rhododendron belongs to rhabotum, now classified as a variety of dalhousiae.  This plant should be the mascot of a military regiment or a police force as the flowers have a broad red stripe running down the middle of each corolla lobe from petal tip to calyx – or from belt to boot strap.  And it blooms in July!  We once had a plant of this gem.   It got to be over two meters high and moving its huge pot to shelter every winter became a very onerous business.  One winter it died from hypothermia.

I always have a smile to myself when lindleyi is mentioned.  About 20 years ago, on a pilgrimage that is now ritual, a group from the club was in Daphne Gibson’s (Ken’s mother) garden in Tofino.  One of our senior members – senior both in age and professional reputation – was Ernie Lythgoe.  Ernie was crouched down, lecturing in his best Oak Bay High teacher manner, on the finer points of R. lindleyi.  In particular we were to note the ‘potter’s thumb marks’ at the base of the corolla.  Maybe the fragrance really went to his head but he pulled the flower right off the plant.  Silence.  In any event lindleyi is a fine thing to have – even if only for a short while.

A close relative of lindleyi is nuttallii.  Here the flowers are not only 12 cm long but equally wide.  R. ‘Hamish Robertson’ is a nuttallii cross and was registered under that name by our late member, Hamish Robertson.  It is a spectacular plant.  The flowers are huge with a blending of white, purple, yellow and pink.  The new foliage is violet. Some of our members are trying to increase its availability.

One of the most satisfactory plants I grow as a pot plant is taronense. This name is now sunk under the name dendricola.  Gary Hadfield gave me this plant six or seven years ago.  As I write, I can look out the window and see it boasting a flower bud at every tip. The plant is a about a meter wide and high.  The leaves are ‘bullate’, i.e. having a puckered appearance. The flowers are pleasantly smelly, white, of respectable size but not huge.  You may recall that our latest winter occurred last March.  We had several nights of below freezing temperatures, one night going to -6°C.  Taronense came through this with only a few flower buds damaged.

A larger plant, with even more bullate foliage and with one of the most pleasing smells of all the Maddenia  is edgeworthii.  I am back in my childhood days spooning my mother’s nutmeg redolent egg custard when in the presence of the flowering edgeworthii. I think if I were on a desert island and could have only one rhododendron it would be edgeworthii.

There are others worthy of mention but both the reader’s patience and mine are reaching exhaustion.  I should, however, mention that the Maddeniis were popular with the Victorian gentry in Britain where they were grown as conservatory plants.  Many hybrids were created.  Some are lost but some are still grown and have become widely sought after.  Many will know or recognize ‘Fragrantissimum’, ‘Lady Alice Fitzwilliams’, ‘Countess of Haddington’, ‘Forsterianum’. These can all be used to contribute to the aromatic mélange.  You have been warned.  And there are newer ones of great merit – ‘Else Frye’ and ‘Mi Amor’, for example, and watch for some of the New Zealand plants that are becoming available.  One of the most interesting blooms in our garden last year was ‘Felicity Fair’- probably only half a maddenii - but its peach trumpets and bold shiny foliage make it ‘a good thing’.