I have a smallish garden, but want to grow every Rhododendron I can since there isn't one I actually dislike.  To reconcile lack of space with my acquisitive nature, I grow lots of things in pots.  Right now, Rhododendron 'Rose Elf' is in full bloom and it's such a sweetie.  It's about 2 feet tall by 18 inches wide and the silly plant is literally covered in pale pinkish/lavender flowers.  The advantage to having containers is that as plants come into peak bloom, I can move them into prime viewing areas on the patio and deck.  So, right now, 'Rose Elf' is beside the front door getting admiring glances from all my neighbours.  Fortunately, I have a safe neighbourhood, and I'm not worried about plant thieves.

I was first introduced to 'Rose Elf' at a rock and alpine show - someone had entered it into the dwarf companion shrub class.  Isn't it funny to think of Rhododendrons as companion plants?  Rock gardeners like this variety because of its small scale and well-behaved growing habit.  And locally, 'Rose Elf' tolerates full sun exposure.

I've had my plant for about 15 years, and in that time, it's gone from a rooted cutting in a 4 inch pot to its current home in a 2 gallon container.  Over the years, I've obviously potted it on, gradually moving up the pot size as the plant grew.  I don't have an exact potting mix that I use every time, but typically, I mix well-crumbled peat moss, perlite and some fine bark mulch together as a starting point.  Lately, I've been adding some Sea Soil (this is a commercial composted bark mulch and fish waste product), and then, if it's handy, I mix in some sharp, coarse sand and even some garden soil.  I don't use exact measurements, but, more or less, I use equal parts by volume of the various ingredients.  I'm after a potting mix that holds some moisture, has good aeration, is dense enough to hold the plant in place and is on the acid side.  I don't worry about nutrients in the actual potting mix because I use slow-release fertilizers like Osmocote or Nutricote on a regular basis.  I top-dress my containers with fine bark mulch or on occasion, with pretty agates from my beach combing trips.  It looks nice, but more importantly, it helps prevent the soil mix from getting too compacted when I water or from heavy rain.

The major issue for my pots is watering in the summer.  There are times when I need to water on a daily basis, and that's o.k. with me, but to cut down on watering as much as possible, I move my pots to shady locations for the summer.  They get tucked under my apple trees, lined up under the eaves on the north side of the garage and I have an old patio umbrella that I set up to shade some of the larger containers.  It's amazing how the plants seem to thrive and just a bit of shade has cut my watering by about a third.  When I want to be away, I hire my neighbour's son to come and water.  I'll make a gardener out of that young man yet!

One of the biggest dilemmas rhododendron gardeners face is whether or not to leave their own gardens for a few days to attend the American Rhododendron Society's Annual Convention.  Usually held in April or May, and alternating between the East and West coasts, these meetings aim to bring together 200-300 rhododendron enthusiasts to visit public and private gardens at their peak of perfection.  This year the Annual Convention is being held in Vancouver, WA on May 11-15, 2011.

Garden hosts often prepare for several years for these visits, grooming and primping their gardens to be seen by visitors from all over the world.  Plants are labeled, garden maps printed, neighbors roped in to help guide and sometimes even goodies baked for the guests.  These are after all some of the best of the best private gardens and some of the most knowledgeable people in the world about the genus Rhododendron.

Our first conference, 20+ years ago, was a big unknown.  Would we feel out of place or overwhelmed by the level of technical detail?  On the contrary, we found that this group of garden lovers were the most friendly and welcoming people imaginable.  This wasn't a technical conference this was a group of like minded individuals who gathered to enjoy the fruits of each others' labor.  It wasn't a series of lectures with garden visits, it was definitely a unique opportunity for garden visits with a several interesting lectures thrown in.

Most conferences seek to bring in speakers who are well regarded in their home area, but rarely available in the conference area.  This way a lot of local people will be interested in their presentations as well as those like us who have become addicted to traveling from far away.  This year the keynote speaker is Hartwig Schepker from Bremen - famous for being the organizer of the last year's fabulous 75th Anniversary Conference of the German Rhododendron Society.  It promises to be a very entertaining evening.

Read more about the ARS Annual Convention, and don't hesitate for a moment to leave your garden for a few days to go to the Vancouver, WA event, you'll have no regrets.

It's late March, and finally, spring has arrived in local gardens.  Here in the Pacific Northwest, we've had a troublesome winter - not difficult compared to much of North America - but with a couple of episodes of sudden cold spells that have led to some winter injury.  The really damaging cold came in late November, when temperatures dropped suddenly to -8 C after a mild, wet fall.  Lots of plants were still actively growing at the time, so hadn't hardened off properly.  We had a second cold snap here in late February (again to -8 C), but since plants were still dormant, this didn't cause many problems.  It was the early cold that hit things hard.

As spring arrives, I'm relieved to see that most of my rhododendrons will be o.k. although there is some flower bud damage here and there.  Most surprizing to me is the bud injury on my R. 'Nancy Evans', a variety usually considered to be an easy grower here.  There will be flowers, but perhaps not the usual "knock em dead" display.

The plant I'm most worried about is my R. lyi, which has lost a lot of leaves as well as its flower buds.  However, R.lyi isn't really hardy here, so growing it for me has been a case of zone denial.  I'm hoping for regrowth from the lower part of the main stem and of course, if it does die, there's always the thought that there's now space for a new plant.  Hmmm, we'll see.... So much for the sad news, we gardeners are really optimists, and most things will be fine and the spring displays great.

Rhododendron lutescens, one of my favourite species, is out full today, adding a soft, cheerful note to the garden.  If you like pale yellow, this early-blooming species is reliable, easy to grow and readily available, at least in our neck of the woods.  I've planted a fair number of daffodils in the same area, and there's tons of Muscari (grape hyacinth) coming up too, so the yellows and deep blue/purple really draw the eye to that part of the garden.