May flowers brought to you by May showers
This morning at paper-fetchin' time, I caught the first white rhodo in the act of opening up. And while the purple rhodos are massively out, too (some years there's as much as a colorless week between when the purples go away and the whites open up
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Particularly when that life is rhododendrons. I'm not gonna say they're outright indestructible, but...
At one place I live, the landlord decided1 to take out the 6-7 large rhodies by our front walk. He razed them to the ground, giving the front yard a somewhat desolate and alien look2, but never managed to schedule his friend with the backhoe to come dig out the roots.
As spring progressed, the rhododendrons started sending up new shoots. And every week when the gardener came by to weed-whack the lawn, he would *massacre* those shoots with the weed whacker, because weed whackers don't work well when used on things very close to stumps. They weren't whacked so much as flogged into oblivion each week, leaving tattered strands of green once-was-a-leaf dangling limply.
But they kept coming back.
Eventually, I put up little signs asking him to stop whacking the things, because they'd suffered enough already3. He did, and without their weekly beatdown the rhododendrons flourished... and eventually returned. The landlord never did get the tuits to pull them out.
And this is why I am not in the least bit afraid of over-pruning rhododendrons.
1 As part of his inexplicable seeming vendetta against all plant life on the property. It was odd.
2 Aided by the uncovering of a rusty metallic (sculpture? obscure piece of farm equipment?)
3 And because the blasted landscape + flayed leaf carcasses wasn't exactly the loveliest sight to come home to.
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Yes, thank you Internets, "grows on the stony alpine slopes and ledges at altitudes of 12,000 to 14,500 feet."
Survivors, no?
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Nor, if they're native to high altitudes like that, shall I worry about more cold winters.
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