Tag Archives: Azalea mollis

Show time!

It is the time of the year when the deciduous azaleas star and there aren’t too many plants that star in bloom as they do. For 49 weeks of the year, they are largely ignored and then boom!

If you set aside the flower power, deciduous azaleas are a fairly unremarkable plant, at least in our conditions. I have never seen one with exceptionally attractive form. In winter when they have no leaves, they tend to look twiggy, scruffy and dead. With their fresh foliage in spring, they are generally unremarkable. By the end of summer, in our mild, humid conditions, the foliage is often mildewed. As I went around photographing ours on Thursday, I thought they would look better if we did a big round on taking out the dead wood, which we haven’t done for some years. This is a task best done when the plants are in leaf because in winter, it is hard to tell the difference between dead wood and live wood. But even when we clean them up in this way, it is still very hard to turn an azalea shrub into a good form which stands on its own merit because their growth habit is so twiggy, so formless.

These shortcomings are forgiven when they come into bloom. Masses of bloom, often strongly scented and the colour range is extensive. Some have a vibrance and mass that is rarely equalled. ‘Look at me! Look at me!’ they shout. Others are much more restrained in hue if you can’t think how to integrate the pure colour of the oranges, reds and yellows.

We have a fair swag of them, mostly planted between the 1950s and the 1960s. Some came into the garden as named varieties but the names have been lost in the mists of time. Felix Jury immediately used these in controlled crosses and raised more from seed. Mark also dabbled in turn, particularly with getting double flowers. Deciduous azaleas are one member of the rhododendron family that I think you can safely buy based on flower colour alone, without worrying about searching out particular varieties.

Most of our azaleas are surrounded by large expanses of green. And a rhododendron is not going to survive being planted right on the streambank like this azalea (which is itself a member of the rhododendron family but let us not be pedantic).

Azaleas are useful because they are nowhere near as touchy about growing conditions as most rhododendrons, particularly wet feet, as we refer to heavy soils that never dry out. In those earlier days, our park was prone to flooding. They will also tolerate dry and exposed conditions, living and growing when many rhododendrons will quietly give up the ghost and die. We only have a few deciduous azaleas in the cultivated gardens around the house; most are in the looser areas of the park and the  Wild North Garden. And therein lies a lesson on placement. I don’t think they are an easy plant to place well in smaller, urban gardens, especially the strong coloured varieties.

It is hard to place a plant as dominant as this when in bloom in a smaller, town section planted in the soft pinks of springtime.

I drive past such a small garden every time I go to town. Freshly planted, my guess is that the owners went to the garden centre in spring and bought everything in flower that they liked. It has been particularly pretty this spring with both Magnolia Felix Jury and Iolanthe putting on a show despite their small stature at this early stage, along with some very pretty cherry blossoms, rhododendrons and camellias. And, this week, one garish deciduous azalea in bright yellow. I can see why they bought it but it does rather stand out as lacking harmony with the rest of the garden. The more restrained colours are easier to integrate.

I think our brightest azaleas work because they are standing pretty much in isolation surrounded by masses of green. When they have finished flowering, they will just be another shrub down in the park, like a neutral coloured cushion on a sofa. It is much harder to place them well in a small garden.

If you are in New Zealand and want to buy a deciduous azalea or three, do it right now. This is not a plant that fits modern methods of production and retail so you are unlikely to find them easily when they are not in bloom. Garden centres are not keen on them because they only sell when in flower.

I briefly attempted to disentangle the differences between deciduous, mollis, Ilam and Ghent azaleas, to name just a few groups. Mark gave me a potted history of the azalea in Aotearoa New Zealand and names like Exbury, Stead, Yeats and Denis Hughes all came up, along with notable collections around the country when they were a very popular plant several decades ago. Alas, I am not so fascinated by the genus as to give the time to fact check it all. I will say that if you use the broad term of ‘deciduous azaleas’, it will encompass the lot.

I picked one flower from each azalea that I could reach currently in flower, just to show the range of colour, size and flower form.
The three double white flowers are Mark’s efforts. I did not know this until he saw me laying out the flower board selection.
Too much? I admit there is a whole lot of this orange wonder in its location in a wilder area of the park where it has thrived, untouched by human hands for decades.

The colours of November

Almond Icing - CopyThe deciduous azaleas certainly add vibrancy to the late spring garden as we enter November. They are not all so breathtakingly unsubtle. But I guess, were a plant to think like a human, if you are going to spend 11 months of the year being pretty insignificant, you might as well make a loud statement when it is your time to star.

In a small garden, deciduous azaleas are more back-of-the-border plants than specimen glories. They lack good structure and form and their foliage is rarely remarkable. They are prone to developing mildew on the leaves as summer progresses, certainly here in the mid north and I believe it gets worse the warmer the climate. Then the leaves drop in autumn – giving autumn colour in colder climates but not here – and all winter there is just a very plain, twiggy looking shrub.

They certainly don’t fit into a heavily-styled all year round garden where structure is deemed to be more important than seasonal colour. For these are plants that shout out to be noticed in flower and ignored the rest of the year.

DSC02020R - CopyThe area of our garden that we refer to as ‘the park’ was first planted in the early 1950s, in the style then promoted by the New Zealand Rhododendron Association. Plants stand in solitary splendour which gives them their own space, plenty of air movement and the ability to be viewed from all aspects. While it has changed and matured over the intervening six decades, the deciduous azaleas still thrive in this environment with minimal attention.

We find they are more tolerant of heavier, wetter soils close to the stream than their evergreen rhododendron cousins, which can’t abide wet feet. Equally, we have seen them thriving very close to the coast. And when they bloom, their vibrant colours are surrounded by plenty of green which removes the need to worry about clashes. We do not get the same intensity of yellow, orange, tangerine and plum colours with big floral display in many evergreen rhododendrons.

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Many deciduous azaleas are strongly scented and this does not appear to be linked to colour as it often is in the wider rhododendron family where scented varieties are commonly in the whites and paler hues. But for those of more refined sensibilities, not all deciduous azaleas are in bright, unsubtle colours. Mark’s late father liked the softer colours and colour mixes, so we have some lovely varieties in paler apricot, almond and cream or white shades. Every year, we are delighted by the combination of a large old lilac bush that survives and flowers on despite this not being an area renowned for growing the syringia family, its many lilac plumes intermingling with a soft apricot azalea.

unnamed seedling - CopyAzaleas are all part of the wider rhododendron family. Evergreen ones originate from Japan while the deciduous azaleas are much more widespread in the temperate world, being found in China, Japan, Korea, southern Russia and North America. Most of what are grown now are hybrids with very mixed genetics.They are often inaccurately referred to as Ilam azaleas or azalea mollis in this country. “Mollis” refers to a particular cross deriving from A. molle and A. japonicum, originating from early plant breeders in Holland and Belgium. The Ilam azaleas came from the breeding done in Christchurch but have strong links to the Exbury azaleas, also referred to as the Knap Hill hybrids. Then there are the Ghent azaleas, which originated from that area in Belgium. Confused? It is really difficult to disentangle when in fact the most accurate description is simply to refer to them as “deciduous azaleas”.

If you are a keen and patient gardener, you can raise them from fresh seed and you will get variation in the offspring. If you want instant plants, buy them when you see them offered for sale because they are not usually available from garden centres all year round.

Denis Hughes at Blue Mountain Nurseries in Tapanui, Southland, has been breeding, selecting and selling deciduous azaleas for many years. They are grown more widely in the South Island but will flower just as freely in the north. The nursery is now in the hands of his son, Chris, and they continue to offer a mailorder service, including azaleas.

Val's Choice - CopyFirst published in the November issue of New Zealand Gardener and reprinted here with their permission.

Plant Collector – Azalea mollis

Look at me! Look at me! Azalea mollis

Look at me! Look at me! Azalea mollis

The mollis azaleas can be such a wonderfully flamboyant addition to a garden with strident colours which shout “look at me”! They are members of the rhododendron family but deciduous, cold tolerant and more forgiving of less than ideal soil conditions, particularly wetter and heavier ground. Many have fragrance which is gilding the lily further. Not all of them are such loud colours. You can get pastels, whites and subdued shades which show more refined taste, perhaps. But the vibrant oranges, yellows, reds and colour mixes have an intensity which is unrivalled in other members of the rhododendron family, magnified by the fact that they flower on bare wood, before the new season foliage appears.

Azalea mollis used to be very popular but are nowhere near as readily available these days. Their habits don’t suit modern nursery growing practices and they are only saleable when in flower so garden centres often shy away from them. In winter they are just bare sticks and in summer they are relatively anonymous and prone to mildew in warmer, humid climates. Their comparatively short selling season does not suit modern plant retailing so you may have to search them out and grab them when you find them without worrying too much about particular named cultivars. They are easy to raise from seed and often what is sold are just seedlings. Plant them in sunny positions where they can star in flower and not be too obvious when they aren’t.

Azalea mollis are not a species (which is how they occur in the wild). They are hybrids from controlled crosses, initially between the Chinese and Japanese azaleas but now pretty mixed in their genetics.

First published in the Waikato Times and reproduced here with their permission.