Rhododendron x alabamense 'Addison'

'Addison' began as a chance seedling of the Alabama azalea, Rhododendron alabamense, and grew into something none of the parents quite predicted. Surely a hybrid, though the exact parentage remains unknown, the plant carries large, dense, dome-shaped terminal clusters that blend shades of yellow, pink, and white in a single truss, a multicolored effect striking enough that the selection first went by the name 'Stunning'. Charles Webb, a good friend of Woodlanders, spotted and selected the seedling in Florida, and the plant now carries the name of one of his young granddaughters.

The Alabama azalea behind 'Addison' is one of the loveliest of the southeastern natives, a white-flowered, yellow-blotched shrub famous for a clean lemon-and-spice fragrance, and the hybrid keeps that sweet scent alongside the borrowed color. The native deciduous azaleas of the Southeast bloom in a long spring-into-summer relay, and a tall, free-flowering hybrid like this one earns a place at the heart of a collection, feeding the season's early bees and butterflies while the flowers shift through their warm range as they age.

The habit is tall and open, reaching ten to twelve feet in time on an airy, upright frame rather than a dense mound, so the plant reads as a small flowering tree at the back of a border as easily as a shrub. Give room for that height, and expect the loose, see-through structure to layer well behind lower companions. As with every azalea, the whole plant carries grayanotoxins and is poisonous if eaten, a trait to keep in mind around children and livestock.

Site 'Addison' at a woodland edge, in a native or mixed border, or in the high, filtered shade of tall pines, where the big multicolored trusses can be met at close range and the fragrance caught in passing. Give the cool, moist, acidic, well-drained soil that all the native azaleas share, mulch the shallow roots with pine straw, and pair with ferns, native phlox, and other spring-blooming azaleas to carry the color forward. A distinctive, personable Woodlanders selection with a good story behind the name.