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For the most part I am a lover of double flowers, and variegated leaves and indeed any of the wierd and freakish variations that plants are capable
of. In the case of azaleas I have a bit of a problem. I don't generally like Rhododendron. They are too tidy, too deliberate, too self consciously
pleased with themselves and I get very tired of it, very rapidly. An individual flower of 'Rosebud' on a plant in a pot is a (small) wonder of self involved motion, like pink flakes spiralling down a plughole. I was a little unsettled by the synthetic pink unchewability of the flowers, and I was right. It is a smug, fat repulsive toad of a plant that has been dipped in cheap christmas aftershave to conceal the vacuous absence of either charm or personality. There is a reasonable side to my personality, that will save the repulsive little pustules life, on the basis that it is filling space and not doing any apparent harm, but it will eat away at my joy in the garden, like a maggot in a salad , until one day at a completely inappropriate moment I will hit it very hard with a spade until the maggot is gone. Did I mention how reasonable I was? I am reasonable, and more cowardly than I had hoped. I have dug it up and replanted it at a greater distance from the house. There are two cultivars lister in the International Rhododendron Register but one of them is a Kurume azalea, which this doesn't seem to be. Of the other it says: "Evergreen azalea: 'Louise Gable' x 'Caroline Gable'. Raised: J.B. Gable, Introduced:c 1938. Fls double, hose-in-hose, 2/truss, broadly funnel-shaped, 25 x 30mm, strong purplish pink (62A), flushed with a slight veining of deep purplish pink (61D). Lvs 25-40 x 13mm, mid and glossy green above. Shrun 1.2m in 25 years. AM 1972, FCC 1975." |
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| 25th May 2008 | ||
