Hootmanadendron: February Garden~Thoughts & Observations

Steve Hootman
February 26, 2009

R. dauricum
R. dauricum

I know many of you around the country (and in Canada) are still suffering through what has been a long, and often unusual, winter. Locally, we have had very little precipitation since the beginning of the new year (normally one of our rainiest periods) and I have actually had to run irrigation in some parts of the garden. Here in the Seattle region, as is normal for this time of year, we have been well into the spring season for a few weeks now although we woke up this morning to a couple of inches of newly fallen snow. It is going to remain colder than average with more snow in the forecast. The long-range forecast shows that temperatures are not expected to fall far below freezing, however, so we should have little damage to flowers and buds.

In the garden, the Snowdrops (Galanthus) have been in flower for a few weeks now and many other bulbs are showing above ground. Several rhododendrons are in bloom or will be in a few days. Species such as dauricum      and early forms of mucronulatum   are in full flower as are both the white and pink forms of moupinense. The stunning Rhododendron ririei is almost in full anthesis with lanigerum and strigillosum hard on its heels. In the greenhouses, one of the fragrant members of Subsection Maddenia from Arunachal Pradesh – R. walongense, is in flower as is the stunning yellow chrysodoron and the unusual genestierianum. Also, arboreum ssp. albotomentosum from Mt.Victoria in Burma is in flower, a very nice red.
I have been pulling slides for a lecture the last few evenings and have noted with interest the great disparity in blooming times for the early-season species such as strigillosum and lanigerum. I have images from numerous years in the 1990s and early 2000s that show these and other species in full flower in early February. Most of these same species have not come into flower until late February or even early March the last few years including this one. For example, I have a photo of several plants of R. moupinense in the garden, their scattered corollas forming a beautiful white carpet on the ground beneath – having completely finished their flowering by the ninth of February, 2003. These same plants have just come into flower over the past few days. This correlates strongly with the performance of several other species. We have not necessarily been colder the last few years and I am a bit perplexed with the cause of this phenomenon as an overall pattern. Obviously, there will be small differences in blooming times from year to year but the overall, remarkably earlier season of the dozen or so years prior to about 2005 is striking. Probably just a result of perturbations in the system due to climate change (now I’ve done – I had get all political and tick somebody off). It should also be noted that the later-season flowering species tend not to vary to any great degree in most years compared with the early species.
The new beds for the orbiculare and calophytum collections are nearing completion at the bottom of the meadow and I have finally placed our plants of the striking R. balangense in the garden. If you are in the area, be sure to visit the garden this year, we have made many changes and improvements and several species have been put into public display for the first time.
Steve