Favourite Rhododendron Colours

A gardening friend who loves her spring garden display recently asked me the most difficult question. What was my favourite coloured rhododendron? I was soon struggling to answer...

 In one of the Pond Paddock Gardens.
Deep Pink Rhododendron

Colours Please!

Try thinking rationally about flower colours in the middle of a drab winter! It's easy to become muddled and completely unbalanced. All colours! Any colour you like, thank you! Colours, please!

 Just a few to choose from...
Favourite Fruit-Salad Coloured Rhododendrons...

To try and sensibly answer the question, I ran through the different rhododendrons I grow in my garden. With normal gardeners it should be safe to assume the following: if a certain colour is grown, then that colour is liked, and vice versa. But many of the Moosey rhododendrons have been plants rescued from this sale table and that bargain bin. Some have been wrongly labelled, others label-free, proudly anonymous.

 By Middle path.
Pale Pink Rhododendron

Colour Choice

But my friend wanted me to choose, so I said that my favourites were definitely the fruit salad colours - warm yellows, peaches, apricots, flushed pinks, caramel creams, and lemons. I have a number of these shrubs happily growing near each other by the Willow tree stump. They're luscious - almost good enough to eat!

What About Pink?

But wait - there's the deep, bright pink rhododendron which brightens up my Pond Paddock Garden later in the season. And a huge pale pink shrub delights me in Middle Garden when I'm on my way to feed the hens. It's too easy in the middle of winter to forget my excitement when these first pink colours arrive.

And Red...

And what about the exciting fire engine red Kaponga rhododendron by the glasshouse? This was one of my very first rhododendron plantings. A simple strong red is surely my best colour. I never wear red, but we're talking about flowers here...

Oops. There are more favourites. I've forgotten the magenta and purple shrubs which peep out behind the unfurling Gunnera in Middle Garden. I've limbed-up Pittosporums and cut down Phormiums so their vibrant uncompromising colours can be seen.

Old Ladies Wearing Purple...

They always remind me of that 'cute' poem about being an old lady and wearing purple... Yes - these strong, rebellious colours are definitely my favourites...

 This rhododendron grows near the water race.
Magenta Beauty

One colour I haven't mentioned is lilac. I can definitively state, without fear of contradiction, that this is my least favourite colour, as far as rhododendrons go. And I have others which I'm under-enthusiastic about. White definitely looks better, to my eyes, on a Camellia, or a blossom tree. And blue is better for spring bulbs - hyacinths, bluebells, muscari, and later spring irises - than spring shrubs...

 A rhododendron called Blue Jay.
Go For Blue!

No - I think I'm back with the fruit salad colours. Or any colour, really! My goodness, I can't choose. And I can hardly wait for spring to arrive so I can see some real flower colour!