That is an impressive flower display, but aren't they dangerously close to pink? ;)

maackia - Yep, way too pink for me, but I have enjoyed the dense and colorful foliage for the other 49 weeks of the year!

When a plant in my garden really outdoes itself, I like to share with others. I know there are plenty of gardeners out there who love pink!

No comment. :-))

Wow diggerdee, that is sad. It seems when the west has it good, the east gets hammered, and vice versa! All of my BLEs look better than they ever have in April.

Artinnnature that's great that your BLE's came through winter so good. I actually popped on GW because I was just looking up if and how winter-damaged rhodies can be saved. In my experience, rhodies were always something that were bullet-proof, often in the landscape for years and inherited (usually already quite large) when you moved in someplace lol.

Last year (maybe the year before) was the first time I actually discovered the many cultivars and started actively adding some to my garden. So I am disappointed that this past winter was so damaging to them. But on the other hand, I guess it's better to lose a small, 2-3 foot high shrub than a decades-old, huge shrub. That has to be heartbreaking.

Now I just need to decide whether to continue to add/replace them, or wonder if this winter damage is the new normal....

:)

Dee

I've never seen a Cherries & Merlot in person, but, FWIW, some flowers, but particularly rhododendrons, have some kind of pigment that fools most camera sensors.* A couple rhododendron cultivars of mine will photograph wayyyy more pink than they actually are. I have actually brought a flower into my house, held it up to my calibrated monitor, and had to use a color mixer or hue control in photoshop or gimp to align the screen color with the real color of the flower.

(* And back in the day of film, they were fooled too. Kodak had a special negative film once upon a time, I forget the name, that had extra dye layers for color accuracy in cases like that, and I believe it was even advertised for nature photography.)

[minor edit - Kodak did have neutral films, but the one I was alluding to w/a 4th layer was a Fuji innovation, starting with Reala.]

Totally agree about digital cameras and chemical cameras regarding color. When I'm feeling a bit chippy I set my phone camera to pro where I can adjust the color. I compare the image on the display with the real subject and try and get them to match before capturing the image.

That said, I really don't like the flower color of Cherries and Merlot (foliage is fabulous!), Taurus (foliage is good) or The Honourable Jean Marie de Montague (foliage is excellent).

You may see a theme here. I choose rhodies just as much for foliage quality as I do for flowers.

I inherited three big rhodies in my new garden. They're all some version of pink-red-purple. I think they'll all get to stay for the time being as they have very good foliage.

LOVE the flower color…even if isn’t an accurate depiction of the true color. IMHO, a good red Rhody with nice foliage is Vulcan's Son. Doesn’t have a burgundy back but new leaves have a really neat reddish hue to the green.