Middle Garden Rhododendrons

The trees in Middle Garden grow ever upwards, and I have to remember to limb them up to make room for the rhododendrons underneath. The understory of beautiful spring-flowering shrubs is fast filling out.

In spring Middle Garden is at its most colourful. In early days the spring daffodils gave it colour, but now the rhododendrons are just too big to ignore. A majestic pink beauty is my spring signal that pink things will be appearing all over the garden.

When the big pink starts to fade a very subtle pale purple takes over. I've built a path which meanderes past these two lovely shrubs. All the better to admire them!

By the lawn a large Whitney hybrid flowers in late spring. The ground here is uncompromising, in fact it's quite dry and sandy - yet this rhododendron seems to survive.

Last But Not Least...

Last to flower are two smaller shrubs, coloured indigo and magenta. These large rhododendrons bloom late, at the end of the great flowering wave of Moosey Rhododendrons. They are sheltered in the summery Middle Garden, and can be easily seen from the house lawns.

A few years ago I spent days cutting out and limbing-up the original Pittosporum trees in this garden, to give the under-planted rhododendrons more space to grow. Brilliant displays of colours like this are my reward.