plantyhamchuk:

June 2019

This is where I bring home the sick Rhododendrons I get from work. Rhodies are prone to all sorts of diseases and issues like sun scorch. No one else from work wants to deal with them, but I’ve started to gladly cart these things home. 

Earlier this spring I brought home two that had Phytopthora, we just cut the bad parts off and planted them in pure pine bark mulch. We have a running theory that part of the issue with Phytopthora is too high a pH. The plants have recovered nicely - no sprays or treatment.

Just the other day I dragged home - with the help of my coworker and good friend B - two large B&B Rhodies. The big native ones - Rhododendrom maximum!!! I’ve been wanting these for years… at work they were in full sun, got scorched, and B just didn’t want to deal with them anymore. YES.

This nicely coincides with our discovery that the eastern border of our property extends a slight bit further than we thought. On the east side there is an intermittent stream, which we thought we just had one side. Now it looks like we actually have both sides of a large chunk of it, PERFECT for large Rhodies! I’m pretty excited about this. It’s all a long term project but hopefully, eventually, I can have all sorts of Rhodies and other neat native woodland plants over there.