Rhododendron and Azaleas.
Week of April 9, 2022
The plants are exploding at Western Hills Garden. We are awestruck by the abundant new life in our first spring here. The Rhododendron and Azaleas in particular are coming in fast and will be gone before we know it. They display breathtaking beauty and represent rebirth as well as the constant passage of time.
When we think we’ve located all of these incredible plant varieties on the property, we find another, tucked into a place we hadn’t seen before. It’s a constant game of ‘I Spy’.
We’ve learned that Rhododendron, and their close cousin azaleas, represent a large (over 1,000) species of plants in the heath family. They are the national flower of Nepal and the state flower of West Virginia and Washington. They were first referenced in 16th century literature and classification systems continue to be developed.
The word rhododendron means “rose tree'“ in Latin. Yet Ralph Waldo Emerson declared they rival the rose in a poem he wrote about his love of this plant (and metaphorically about his wife) in 1834.
In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals fallen in the pool
Made the black water with their beauty gay;
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that, if eyes were made for seeing,
Then beauty is its own excuse for Being;
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask; I never knew;
But in my simple ignorance suppose
The self-same power that brought me there, brought you.
——
‘Beauty is its own excuse for being’. We couldn’t agree more.
