Sorry Houzz fails to attach pictures in the first post of the topic. Here are the pictures of the bad one and the good one. Again, growing in the exact same conditions.

Check the roots of that first one. Make sure the roots are getting wet, not just the soil under the mulch.

tj

Check the original potting soil rootball by actually sticking your finger down into it. Once it has dried out, the potting medium can be difficult to rewet and may need a slow trickle of warm water over some time or if that doesn’t work, you may need to dig it up and soak the entire root ball.

on both of them would get quite pendulous
every day but recovered in the evening.

===>>> imo ... if they recover in the cool recovery period of night.. then they arent getting enough water during the heat of the day ...

take a hand trowel or tablespoon .. and dig a few holes 3 to 6 inches down.. and FIND OUT about soil moisture at the depth of the roots.. at least one in the root mass planted.. and one a little further out in undisturbed native soil ...

shading the plant was brilliant ... you might also use a lawn chair ... or whatever ...

ken

When you planted them did you cut into the roots to make sure they weren't bound from being in a pot. If they are rootbound water can penetrate to the plant. If it were me I would dig up the bad plant, take a knife and score through the roots, immerse the plant in a bucket of water. While it is soaking, add peat moss to the soil. Replant making sure that the plant soil is slightly above ground level.

Thanks All.

lovetogarden, to answer your question, the roots looked very good when I planted them.

I ended up digging up the bad plant a month ago. The root ball was indeed too dry. I cut off all the leaves as they were already pretty dry. Planted it in a pot and keeping the soil very moist, but there is pretty much no hope there, as the green stems are also getting wrinkled and dark.

The "good one" is actually looking a bit worse now, with some brown spots on the leaves, that look to me like sunburn. I am using that coffee table to shade it on sunny days now, and hoping it will settle and be able to handle 5-6 hours of sun daily next year, thinking it was able to handle that much sun from April to the end of June when the sunlight is the longest and most vertical in the whole year, and that is after transplanting. Now I water it every couple of days leaving the end of the hose trickling on the base of the trunk for 5 minutes. It seems to handle that watering better, but every now and then the leaves also get pendulous for a few hours.

I actually have another 2 new Loderi rhodies that grow near the first 2 and look much better, I think because they are just under the tall shrubs I wanted to get rid of later. The one that is growing on the south side of the shrub and getting more sun also shows some sunburn-like brown spots, and the one on the north side of the shrub with the least sun looks solid green and the best of all 4. So it may be just too much sun for them. I think I will keep them at those spots until next summer, and if they do not look any better I will replant them all in my back yard under the big trees. I actually have yet to see how they handle our winter with single digit Farenheit, as they are inconsistently reported hardy to zone 7 or 8. I just like the idea of having big evergreen fragrant Rhodies in front of my house, so I do not give up :)

I have the same dilemma. I have 3 rhodies in front of my house. The one in full shade is enormous. The one next to it that gets some morning sunlight is considerably smaller, and the one next to that, which gets full sun, has barely grown, is spindly, and has lichens growing all over it. All were the same size when I purchased them and all were planted at the same time - 7 years ago. I have finally come to the conclusion that I will have to dig the tiny one up and put something else there that likes full sun. Maybe a nice rose. Guess I'll have to give up the idea of having a bank of blooming rhodies in front of my house in the spring.

Loderis are going to need A LOT of shade in Raleigh!

And probably going to be temperamental and prone to root rot. (And winter injury in the very worst of winters) The are an old and 'noble' grex in the world of Rhododendrons. Trust me, various people, somewhere down south, have tried to grow them for decades, and if they were even remotely easy to grow, more of them would be known! The varieties that can handle the climate become known (like 'Bibiana' in the suburbs of Atlanta) and I'm pretty sure Loderis aren't one of them. That being said I have the vaguest memory of seeing them for sale in the 1990s, either in Woodlander's or Camellia's Forest's catalogs. Cam Forest _definitely_ sold a so called "heat tolerant" R. fortunei (one of the parents of Loderi) for a period in the late 1990s, early 2000s, but then I never saw it again. And I never saw one at either of their display gardens. So maybe it wasn't too heat resistant after all...

A hybridizer on Long Island was going to try to recreate tougher forms of Loderis using tougher parents, but I never followed up with him. I have a feeling it wasn't a smashing success. R. griffithianum just isn't very hardy. Even if you use a hardier fortunei than Rothschild did, it only gets you a couple more degree F hardiness.

Really that far south, the safest bet is either

1) hyperythrum hybrids or

2) plants grafted onto hyperythrum hybrids - a commercial practice completely commonplace in Europe using 'Inkharo' for limey soil resistance but that our country's pathetic (in this respect!) nursery industry seems unable to muster. I've tried to prod various west coast nurseries to sell grafted plants and they just won't budge.

Rhododendrons are shade plants! They're best on the north side of a house or under the shade of tall trees.

Thanks David. I agree with what you are saying except that I believe Loderies are not so popular mostly because they take time to start blooming. There are many great plants that thrive in our area but nobody has them. I guess because nobody sells them. I often hear people at the plant nurseries and garden centers say that they only have no particular plant because people do not buy them. But in reality most people buy what they see at HD and Lowe's. Garden centers and nurseries are unfortunately not interested in researching and just keep selling what they have been selling for decades, and that is pretty much what HD sells. That is why pretty much every yard here has a holly, a crepe myrtle, a southern magnolia etc., and I hate this lack of variety. Those Rhodies are only a couple of things I planted along with the other unusual plants in the last couple of years and most of my new plants look absolutely fine. Examples are - Saskatoon, a few different lilacs, a few different Michelias etc. Literally nobody else has them but it does not mean they cannot grow here, despite what people at the nurseries were trying to convince me. I am not saying I know better than you, I am actually quite new in all the gardening. So I am only experimenting. Like I said, if those Rhodies do not look happy next summer I will replant them in a more shady place. Thanks for your suggestions but they are unfortunately not going to work for me because I am interested in the fragrant evergreen Rhodies and there is a big lack of info about those. You mentioned quite interesting things about the Loderi history in the Eastern US, I would be happy if I had access to the source of so much information. I would probably have not even planted them, and found a better alternative. So far I had no luck in finding good info.

Susan, funny thing - my north side of the house actually has more sun than the east side where I planted those Rhodies. At the end of June when the daytime is the longest in the year, if you face the North the sunrise would be about 2 o'clock and the sunset would be about 10 o'clock, so it would be quite a lot of direct light in the morning and evening. And at 1pm when the sun is at the highest point the shadow from the 2 story house is about 5' only. Those 5' are not enough space for the Loderies and at least half of the plant would be in direct sun from sunrise to sunset :) So the only option for me to replant them is under a few big trees I have not gotten rid of yet. We will see next year.

Sabut,

Well, things could be worse. You could be trying to grow something like Rhododendron 'Biskra'!

R. griffithianum and R. fortunei are actually *not* known to be especially root rot prone...yet, none the less, almost all traditional cultivars of rhododendron start becoming uncommon south of the Mason-Dixon line and isn't by accident. (Not counting places like the mountains of NC of course.) One factor is that those seedlings were selected for being vigorous in a tepid, cool summer, maritime climate...which you're not. Again, don't think you're the first. I've been in several collector's garden in central NC, and never seen a huge Loderi rhododendron. Not to say it will be impossible for sure, but for sure it won't be easy. At NCSU for example, I am almost sure the rhododendrons in the lathe house are less numerous than they were back in 2008. One of them IIRC was plain old R. fortunei. I can assure you if JC Raulston could have had towering fragrant Loderis there, he would have.

And besides, that grex is known to need shade even in maritime climates! So I would definitely move them into more shade in the fall. And I would plant them on a mound of _unimproved, local soil_. About 4-5 inches up should be fine. What you want to avoid is a situation every 3-5 years where a hurricane or tropical storm parks and dumps so much water that there is ponding even on fairly level soil. That will drown them and root rot will set in. So with a little mound, you do help to avoid that...although for the first couple years you might have to water a little tiny bit more - but you don't seem to mind that anyhow.

I can't say it will be hugely more adaptable, but for the record 'Mario Pagliarini' is the most fragrant rhododendron I have, and fairly close, in my memory, to the Loderis I smelled on my travels.

Also remind you that knotted roots are epidemic in container grown ornamentals these days; they could eventually kill it and will contribute to root rot death...so you can check for that when you move them.

Rhododendron root-balls are too dense and brittle to bare-root or pull open but a body could certainly try slicing through them in a few places in order to interrupt circling.

Planting woody plants in individual holes of amended or replaced soil was being seen to be a mistake in organized university level trials by the late 1960's. Always refill planting holes with the same soil that came out of them. If different soil really seems necessary excavate and replace the entire bed. Or plant in different soil placed on top of the existing soil, without blending the two together.

I'd think Loderi grex rhododendrons wouldn't be able to hold up under Raleigh conditions also. They certainly aren't showing any being at Raulston and it's not like they haven't tried a variety of different rhododendrons there, judging by the ones they do show as being in the collection:

https://jcra.ncsu.edu/horticulture/our-plants/results.php?search=Rhododendron

I actually rototilled 20 or so bags of Home Depot top soil into the entire bed as there were big holes from the old shrubs I had pulled. Then I added garden soil specifically in the holes for the Rhodies. I do not see issues with the drainage so far, if there were any my 3 Michelias planted in the same bed would have shown that already.

If anyone interested, the "bad" rhodie is dead and the "good" one has a new green stem growing from one of the top buds.

"Rhododendron root-balls are too dense and brittle to bare-root or pull
open but a body could certainly try slicing through them in a few places
in order to interrupt circling."

Yes I agree with embo you have to be careful. I killed a useful plant in my collection by trying to un-knot the roots too aggressively. Rhodo roots are more brittle than most. (the big core ones coming out of the base of the stem ) I should have just given it one radial slice.

In case you are interested, the remaining 3 rhodies are doing fine so far and survived the winter just fine, with the exception of their leaves wilting pretty much every time the temperature was below freezing, but they would recover when it got warm again every time. I have decided to plant something else in that area and will move them in the shade in the next couple of days. I read different reports about their size. Anyone have an idea how to space them?

P.S. One of them is blooming now, supposedly the Venus strain. It was the one in the most shade of all 4 (or 3 now).

I can't be of much help with spacing :-) Here, all the Loderi group rhodies get to be massive shrubs....12-15' tall in time and equally as wide. I would allow plenty of room!

it will be interesting to see how long those last for you; not to be pessimistic towards you but surely many institutions and individuals have tried such hybrids in the Piedmont of NC for decades, and no large plants are known. IIRC years ago (like the 90s) Camforest might have offered a Loderi or two, but nothing like that in their display gardens of late. (either one, I've seen both...but not the original Parks garden, which requires connections to see LOL)

'Puget Sound' does ok here though, and has been unfettered by 0F. It's a cross of a loderi and a similar hybrid. Huge, fragrant flowers, though probably not quite as impressive.

But do keep us updated in coming years; established Loderi rhodies in the south would be an interesting novelty.

Oh that's great. Glad to hear they are doing well. I saw a garden show a few weeks ago where a Rhododendron growers recommends adding a bag of pine bark mulch mixed in with the soil before planting Rhodies, instead of or with peat moss, and if they were grown in a container, to cut through the roots before planting to interrupt the circular growth. He said the pine bark will create the best airable soil environment for Rhodies since they have a shallow root systems, and the best soil ph Rhodies need.

What you're doing right now seems to be okay since the plants are still surviving. I hope they continue to do so for you.

I still haven't moved the spindly Rhododendron in front of my house but plan to do it in the early fall and will replace it with an ever blooming rose that I took cuttings from last spring. It should be a nice enough size by then.

Just wanted to ask, do you bother spraying the leaves with wilt-pruf in the fall? I do it every year and have no dieback of the leaves over the winter. Last fall I meant to do it but got way too busy and actually forgot about it. The plants all suffered as a result. I had a lot of dieback to cut off this spring.

Should correct what I said. It's not dieback. It was winterkill.

I have not sprayed them because I did not know about such thing. And no damage, the leaves are fine. I have never seen such behavior in the cold in any evergreen plants. It looks like the leaves simply freeze in the cold but thaw back when it is warm again, and susprisingly it does not bother them, you can see the last year's leaves underneath the flowers in my last picture. They are hanging down unlike this year's growth (above the flowers on the picture) but still look quite healthy.

I will probably research what the best mix for the rhodies would be and try to make it when I transplant them.

"where a Rhododendron growers recommends adding a bag of pine bark mulch mixed in with the soil before planting Rhodies,"

This is somewhat dangerous advice as it can create a bathtub effect. If one insists on doing this, the plants should be in a mound with the "improved" soil above grade.

davidrt28, what do you mean by a bathtub effect? Many times I purchased potted Rhodies and I could visibly see bits of pine bark in the soil when removing them from the pots; especially when cutting through the roots. I think this is a common practice with growers.

A 'bathtub' is what happens when you fill a planting hole dug in slow draining native soil and fill it with some sort of highly water retentive amendments......like bark or peat. The excess moisture just pools around the plant roots for too long and causes the ideal environment for root rots. You can work around this to some degree by shallowly amending the soil over a quite large area and planting high. Or even better, skip any amendments and plant directly into your indigenous soil and use any desired amendments as a mulch or topdressing.

btw, most commercial growers these days use a heavily bark-based potting mix for any woody plants they grow in containers - rhodies or not - as that offers the optimum degree of aeration and drainage together with adequate but not excessive moisture retention.

Oh, I thought growers did that to mimic growing conditions of rhodies in their native habitat. Seems I learn something new everyday.

I live in a natural rhody habitat - they are our state plant - and no forest soil is by nature very barky :-) Loose and friable due to decades of litter and duff accumulation but no actual bark. That breaks down and decomposes rather rapidly.

btw, balled and burlapped rhodies - common here wth larger specimens - are grown in heavy clay, just like all other B&B trees and shrubs :-)

Over time in the right climate, they get big. I planted this one too close to the path so now it grows over the path.

Yowza, Mike!! And I thought I had a few monsters in my inherited garden.....but nothing quite that massive :-)

Wow Mike, that is an impressive Rhodie. Perhaps you could prune the low branches and leave the higher ones hang over the head.

How old and how tall is it? If it is a Loderi which one? And where are you located?