Gable's "Mildred Mae"
Lavender
Flower single, 2 1/2" to 3" across, fragrant, moderate purplish-pink with a dark red blotch.
Bloom Time: Early Midseason
Height (ft.) in 10 Yrs: 3
Cold Hardiness Temperature: -5°F (-21°C)
Plant Habit: Spreading, compact habit.

===================

Hi Rosie,

I am not sure what your question is?
Evergreen

Around here, early bloomers (like the Kurumes and R. austrinum) bloom from late March to early April. Mid bloomers from early April until some time in June. Blooms will generally last about 2 weeks.

The colder your region is or the colder your winter weather turns out to be, the later the shrub will bloom. The link below shows the months when early, mid and late azaleas bloom in Zone 8. Of course, those are averages. Actual blooming times will be heavily influenced by your local weather and specific variety.

Here is a link that might be useful: Azalea Bloom Times For Zone 8

You may want to consider a trip to Calloway Gardens during the time frame that you are interested in. Or try contacting them to see if they have a list of their early and mid bloomers.

Here is a link that might be useful: Callaway Brothers Azalea Bowl

if memory serves, rhododendron yedoense var. poukhanense is an early bloomer for me. i only have one and they may be hard to find locally but probably available through mailorder. i like the growth habit of this one. it is semi-deciduous here and the foliage will darken in winter.
flowers are mildly fragrant as the temps warm in the afternoon. they look like lavender stars held at the ends of the branches and they are more sparse over the plant than the traditional azaleas found in the south.
purple is a favorite color in azaleas for me. 'elsie lee' flowers are a beautiful color for late spring on plants with a colomnar habit.
you might also be able to grow the encore azaleas and 'autumn royalty' can provide more purple in the fall.

As jeff_al said, check out your local garden centers for Encore Azaleas. A major market they are sold in is Atlanta, GA and the surrounding areas. They perform exceptionally well in zone 7. They'll repeat bloom throughout the year. You can go to the Encore Azalea website and see all of the varieties, bloom color, and growing habits.

Here is a link that might be useful: Encore Azalea website

Hey, you guys, I'm so sorry I didn't see your answers until now. I asked the system to e-mail me with any, and after dropping by for one day and not seeing any I went into wait mode and then forgot and missed all the good info here. Thank you!

New info on climate--we seem to be in a cold spot here. Just north of Lake Lanier and Atlanta, but it dropped to 15 degrees the night before last, 10 degrees and more colder than most areas around.

In any case, when I returned to the nursery they'd already sold out of Mildred but will have more in the spring. But they did have poukhanense and, unwilling to have those disappear on me too, came home with 5 as a trial even though I knew nothing about her. So it's really great to get info on this one from someone who grows her, Jeff. That she is less covered with flowers than most selections these days actually sounds nice. I have a fondness for plants with kind of a dainty old-fashioned or even wild look. I've also just gone ahead and put Elsie Lee on my "send for" list based on a recommendation from someone who loves this color.

Evergreen, I'd like most of my azaleas to put on their show in early and mid spring but be done blooming later on when the dogwoods get going. Thanks for the info on Mildred Mae. It sounds lovely and I think has to be the Mildred available here. The foliage was darker and richer in color than most of the other azaleas and the growth habit fairly dense.

Luis, thanks very much for that extremely useful chart. It does look like I need to stay away from those designated as midseason, although a few Encores here and there, maybe tucked back toward the edges of the woods, seem a must-have.

I now have the winter to consider the selections recommended and may well end up trying them all since I would like some range in color, size, and bloom time. They'll go in a band of shrubbery and trees around a circular lawn our new porch looks down on from about 14 feet up. And I also want to tuck a heat-tolerant rhodie, still to be chosen, against the house where we walk by above the lawn...

Happy anticipation season, Rhodie people, and thanks again for your expertise.

Hello Rosie:

I just saw your post and looked in my picture file. Both the Poukhanense and the Elsie Lee varieties bloomed for me this year in April. They do have an unreal color! The only dated picture is for April 26 and that was the E.L. The Poukhanense would have been in full bloom at the beginning of the month. I live in Carrollton, so you would probably be a couple of weeks after us.

I'm sorry I can't post the pictures; I'm just not computer savvy enough to get them out of photobucket.

Hope this helps!

It is pretty easy, nippersdad.

Step 1: Go to photobucket and locate the picture. You will notice a lot of blank space underneath the picture.

{{gwi:399038}}

Step 2a: Place the cursor over the picture. This triggers some information to be displayed right below the picture. One item of use is called "Direct Link".

{{gwi:399040}}

Step 2b: The Direct Link Info goes away when you sometimes move the cursor so, VERY QUICKLY, move the cursor to the words that appear after "Direct Link" and click on the words once. This will highlight the URL in blue. Then press the keys Ctrl C to copy that URL.

{{gwi:399042}}

Step 3: Return to this screen. Below is a field called Optional Link URL where the above URL must be pasted. Place the cursor on the field, click there once and then press the keys Ctrl V to paste the URL. Then add a comment in the Message Field and add a title in the Name Of The Link Field.

{{gwi:399043}}

Step 4: Click the Preview Message Button once to go into another webpage. Then click the Send Button once on that page. You are done.

"Unreal" sounds very exciting, Nippersdad. I'd love to see them if you can post but understand if you prefer not to. I'm lagging on learning how myself, or rather doing it often enough to remember how.

That's good information coming from a neighbor, though I can't figure out even what general zone we're in these days. Most of Atlanta area's basically zone 8 now, I guess, but three nights ago we dropped to 8 degrees here, and I'm really wondering what the rest of the winter might bring.

Anybody have suggestions for what a good heat-tolerant rhododendron might be? Since it'll be up on the path level below the porch, it can be any wonderful color and bloom time.

Yes, the rhododendrons listed on the link below have been designated as 'proven performers' by the American Rhododendron Society:

http://www.rhododendron.org/performers10.htm

The list also includes azaleas. It, the list, applies to these locations: GA, FL, AL, TN, NC and SC.

Thank you Luis!

I am utterly hopeless at that type of thing so it is wonderful to have something I can print out and stare at whilst running through the process.

Hi Rosie:

I know that unreal probably sounds hyperbolic, but en masse the Poukhanense and Elsie Lee's really are a wild sight to behold. I'm sure that you will like them. They go well with true pinks and whites as well and you will find them to be extremely drought tolerant (as azaleas go, anyway).

Speaking as a native, IMHO the climate is definitely warming and getting droughtier in the summers, but I wouldn't plant for warmer zones insofar as the winters have always been extremely variable. In the eighties we got down to zero for a week in intown Atlanta! Plan, in your area, for the cusp of zones six and seven and you should do fine.

This is a picture (thanks to Luis!) of the Poukhanense that we were discussing.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:399034}}

That's gorgeous, Nippersdad. Thank you. I'm so glad I thought to post here. I was nervous about planting several groups of a shrub/shrubs I'd never seen and had no experience of to draw on, but I feel good about going ahead with this. Not least because--as azaleas go!--these are more drought tolerant. Fantastic! I'll put drippers along them, but these beds will be among the very few areas that cannot survive a summer without additional water. I did years of drought back in California and want a garden that's still a garden no matter what comes along. You obviously know your zones. A few nights ago it was down to 8 degrees before rebounding to something like normal.

Luis, a proven performer for my area is definitely what I want. With handsome foliage. Cooking and shopping have kept me busy, but I'll be going over those links you sent and googling and fantasizing over everything on them. I already know I'd need a whole lot more moist shade for everything I'd like to have.

Hope your holidays got a good kickoff. We're having turkey and gravy for the third night running tonight and looking forward to it. :)

nippersdad...

If you drop down to the next line, HTML Code and click on it, you will see an icon appear that says "copied".
Come back to the Forum thread text, right click and select paste. The HTML Code will appear in the text and when you select Preview Message, the photo will appear within the text, such as:
{{gwi:399045}}

Easy as pie!
Rb