Two branches of one great genus, grown for the spring flower above all. From fragrant native azaleas to bold evergreen rhododendrons, these are woodland-edge shrubs for cool, acid, dappled ground.
This native azalea is a hybrid of two well-loved wild species, the Cumberland azalea, Rhododendron bakeri, of the southern Appalachians, and the swamp azalea, Rhododendron viscosum, of wet woodland edges across the East. From the Cumberland azalea the cross takes warm color and a rounded, ball-shaped truss; from the swamp azalea, whose name viscosum means sticky, for the glandular, clammy surface of the flowers, the hybrid takes adaptability to humid ground and a late season of bloom. The genus name Rhododendron means rose tree in Greek.
Flame azalea is the showiest of all the native azaleas, and the one that stops hikers in their tracks on the Appalachian balds each June. The large, funnel-shaped flowers open in a fiery range that runs from clear yellow through gold and apricot to blazing orange and scarlet, carried in loose trusses just as the new leaves expand. For all that color the flowers are, unusually, without scent, but nothing about a flame azalea in full bloom feels the lack.
'Dawn at the River' is a fine selection of the native flame azalea, Rhododendron calendulaceum, one of the most spectacular of all the wild deciduous azaleas of the eastern mountains. The species blankets woodland slopes and high mountain balds through the southern Appalachians, from Pennsylvania to Georgia, where the famous flame-colored display draws pilgrims to places like Gregory Bald each June. The species name calendulaceum means resembling Calendula, the marigold, a nod to the vivid orange of the flowers, while the common name flame azalea catches both that fire and the way the upright buds stand like candle flames.
Rhododendron canescens, the Piedmont azalea, is very likely the most widespread of all the wild deciduous azaleas of the Southeast, ranging through the Piedmont, coastal plain, and stream edges from the mid-Atlantic to the Gulf. Country people have long called the plant the Southern pinxter or simply wild honeysuckle, for the sweet, honeysuckle-like scent of the flowers. The species name canescens means becoming gray or hoary, a reference to the soft gray down that coats the undersides of the leaves and the new growth.
'Camilla's Blush' is a choice clone of the native Piedmont azalea, Rhododendron canescens, selected and introduced by Jeff and Lisa Beasley of Transplant Nursery in Lavonia, Georgia, who named the plant for their eldest daughter. The shrub came to us as cuttings shared by our friend and fellow plant nut Dean Jolly. From the widespread wild species, this selection was chosen for an especially generous show of soft pink flowers and vigorous, willing growth.
'Clyo Red' is a striking red-flowered selection of the native Piedmont azalea, Rhododendron canescens, a species usually seen in soft pink and white. Here the wild pink is deepened to a rich cherry-red, an uncommon and eye-catching tone among the native azaleas, carried on the same fragrant, early-spring frame that makes the Piedmont azalea so beloved. The name points to Clyo, a small community in Effingham County, Georgia, near the plant's Southern home.
'Varnadoe's Pink' is a choice dark-pink selection of the native Piedmont azalea, Rhododendron canescens, chosen and grown by the late Aaron Varnadoe of Colquitt, Georgia, a great native-azalea grower and genuine Southern character. Where the wild species varies from pale to deep pink, this selection holds a rich, abundant dark pink, and the plant has become a popular favorite for that reliable color and a good habit and foliage. The selection is sometimes sold under the name 'Varnadoe's Phlox Pink'.
Chapman's rhododendron is a compact evergreen shrub of six to eight feet, carrying small, thick, distinctly rounded leaves in a light green, with margins that roll under slightly at the edge. In late spring the plant opens clusters of rose-pink flowers, funnel-shaped and freely borne, and the effect on a well-grown specimen is generous rather than sparse. Set beside the closely related Rhododendron minus, this plant reads lighter and rounder in the leaf, and most authorities now treat the two as one species, filing this one as Rhododendron minus var. chapmanii. We keep the name under which gardeners and native-plant people know the plant.
'Chapmanii Wonder' is an uncommon and rewarding evergreen rhododendron, the offspring of an inspired cross made by a Japanese breeder between two very different parents. From the endangered Florida native Chapman's rhododendron, Rhododendron chapmanii, the plant inherits broadleaf evergreen foliage and Deep South heat tolerance; from the hardy white-flowered form of Rhododendron dauricum, a species of northeastern Asia, the plant takes cold hardiness and early bloom. The species name dauricum points to Dauria, the region of southeastern Siberia where that parent grows wild, while chapmanii honors Alvan Wentworth Chapman, the nineteenth-century botanist of the Southern flora.
Rhododendron colemanii, the Red Hills azalea, is one of the most recently recognized of all the native deciduous azaleas, first described as a distinct species only in 2008. For years the plant was folded in with the Alabama azalea, Rhododendron alabamense, which blooms earlier and holds consistently white, yellow-blotched flowers; the Red Hills azalea, by contrast, flowers later and in a wider range of color. The species takes its home ground from the Red Hills country of the inner coastal plain, a narrow range across southwest Georgia and southern Alabama.
'Flame Creeper' is a low, spreading evergreen azalea of the Satsuki group, the Japanese evergreen azaleas prized for late bloom and bright, clear color. Rather than rising into a shrub, this selection stays close to the ground, knitting into a dense, weed-smothering carpet of small, glossy, dark green leaves that hold through the year. The name catches both the habit and the color: a creeping mat that bursts into flame each spring.
'Florence' is a robust selection, possibly a hybrid, of the native Oconee azalea, Rhododendron flammeum, chosen and named by our friend Charles Webb of Superior Trees in Florida. The name honors Florence, Mr. Webb's wife, and both have long been good friends of ours. The plant traces back further still, to a group of azaleas that came originally from the late Aaron Varnadoe of Colquitt, Georgia, who collected, propagated, and shared so many fine native azaleas across the South.
The Oconee azalea is the flame azalea of the lowlands, and for a Southern gardener that difference matters. Where the mountain flame azalea pines for cool Appalachian summers, this Piedmont cousin was born to the heat, thriving in the clay hills and stream bluffs of middle Georgia and South Carolina and taking the humidity of the Deep South in stride. The reward is the same fire in the flower: bright orange to orange-red trusses, sometimes shading to salmon or gold, opening in mid-spring.
'Balsaminaeflorum' is a dwarf evergreen Satsuki azalea, an old Japanese cultivar of Rhododendron indicum grown for flowers that look less like azaleas than like tiny roses. Each bloom is fully double, packed with forty or more petals and carrying neither pistil nor stamens, so the flower is all soft, ruffled color. The cultivar name means balsam-flowered, a nod to the double blooms of the garden balsam, while indicum, meaning of India, is an old misnomer for a plant that is in fact Japanese.
This spreading open-branched evergreen azalea has dull green to yellowish-green fuzzy leaves. The deep pink to rust colored flowers may appear sporadically through summer, but typically this species flowers in the fall, which is a unique feature. Rarely offered in the U.S. this azalea is one of the parents of the now popular "Encore" Hybrids. It is native to Taiwan. Culture is as for other evergreen azaleas.
Pinxterbloom is the wild azalea of the eastern woods, a hardy native that hangs its soft pink flowers along the branches in mid-spring, just before the leaves catch up. The funnel-shaped blooms, pale pink to nearly white, throw long curving stamens well past the petals, giving the whole shrub a hazy, spidery lightness, and carry a faint sweet scent on a warm day. Few native shrubs say spring so plainly.
Among the most beloved of the eastern wild azaleas, Rhododendron periclymenoides drifts through the open woods and swamp margins of the eastern United States from New Hampshire and Massachusetts south to South Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama, opening clouds of pink bloom just as the woodland wakes in spring. This selection breaks from the ordinary pink of the species: a soft lavender-purple color form discovered in Lancaster County, South Carolina, and introduced by Woodlanders, uncommon in the wild and rarer still in cultivation. Botanists once filed the species under the name Rhododendron nudiflorum, and the plant still answers to that older label in many an old garden book.
This native deciduous azalea is considered one of the finest of the American Azaleas. It has orange-red to red flowers in July and August, much later than most native azaleas. It is a rare species found only in western Georgia and eastern Alabama where it grows along sandy ravines and along stream banks. It is the logo plant for the famous Callaway Gardens at Pine Mountain, Georgia which has done much to preserve and popularize this species. Culture as for other native azaleas that prefer well-drained acid soil and light shade.
Michael Dirr, in his Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, sets the bar plainly: one of the finest azaleas, the flowers opening just as the leaves expand, with no adequate way to do the plant justice in the written word. The royal azalea earns the praise. Rhododendron schlippenbachii is a deciduous azalea of Korea and the neighboring corners of northeast China, the Russian Far East, and Japan, where the shrub forms the dominant understory across whole hillsides, blooming in soft drifts of pink from four hundred to fifteen hundred meters up the slopes.
