Rhododendron

[Zosherooney]

Bought a beautiful one of these y'day - Red - for £3 from Wilkies. Nice healthy plant, we have the right sort of soil here for them, with 3 large ones already in the back garden (just coming into flower). Never having planted one before, any helpful tips anyone would care to share ? It is in bud ATM. Currently has been watered and is sitting on the front porch in a pot.

[scullion]

Personaly, I would prune it right back and put the rest of it in the incinerator. They're a blousey, invasive pain that increase the prevalence of oak dieback.

[Zosherooney]

[suffolk]

I don't grow them, but the RHS gives advice here https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=529

[StokeySue]

I don't think all varieties are invasive are they? I know they are a pain in Snowdonia and elsewhere, but the varieties sold in garden centres are not the same as those, which is rhodendron ponticum I don't think? Check the label

Article in the Guardian about it


Suffolk's link probably more practical help

[patpoyntz]

We have several and if you pick the right varieties they are not at all invasive. The ‘yakushimanum’ (s?) types are very compact. Some of ours are over 30 years old and are about a metre each way. They are very prolific flowerers and are a wonderful splash of colour in the spring/early summer. We feel lucky to have acid soil, which they need, and are hardy up here in the far north. We had a holiday in India a couple of years ago, and did the wee train up to Shimla in the foothills of the Himalayas, through wonderful red rhododendrons growing wild, and I love to think of the early plant collectors coming across plants like that and bringing them home for us. The blooms of that particular variety are used to make a rather refreshing drink.
I know some people don’t like them because they are not native, but then so few of our plants are.

[Zosherooney]

Thanks for all for your helpful input. The new Rhodo will be a bit of a centrepiece for when the build is finished and will brighten up an area at the bottom of a rowan tree in the front garden.

[Badger's mate]

Yes, I believe the invasive one is R ponticum and a right PITA it is too, but that's not relevant here. I had a rhododendron back in Edmonton that wouldn't flower. I hit upon the idea of mulching it with discarded tea leaves, of which I had a plentiful supply, and in subsequent years it bloomed beautifully. I've always assumed it was simply due to lowering the soil pH around the roots.

Some info on oak dieback
https://www.forestry.gov.uk/fr/infd-7axgcj

[scullion]

[Badger's mate]

Garden escapes are a big deal of course. In the Amsterdam Botanic garden this week there were several beds that needed a bit of TLC. One of these had a clear issue with Japanese knotweed.

[scullion]

tell us about that one - there are ongoing council efforts to eradicate that round here, too, you often see little notices on hedges etc to warn of treatment.
it's the only thing i resorted to roundup for on the patch in our garden (also here when we bought), also taking a couple of years to get rid of.
montbretia is another one - now on the invasive specie list. the only way we have found to kill it is by digging as deep as possible to get all the corms and putting them in black plastic sacks, where they reduce to slime with the heat. they will take more years than we have to get rid of them in our garden (by non chemical means).

[Badger's mate]

We had Japanese knotweed in the garden at home in my youth. It was under the shed and could come back any time it was dug out. I did remove it with Glyphosate when that first became available, not sure what I would do now in the same circumstances, perhaps the same.

[suffolk]

JKW ... when an acquaintance found it in her new garden she fenced it around and kept chickens in there ... after fifteen years of being constantly pecked to death it gave up

[Zosherooney]

And here's me planting montbretia !!! The cultivated sort - vivid fiery orange - lovely !!!

Rhodo now planted and watered in.