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National Rhododendron Garden, Olinda..
Members of the Ferny Creek Horticultural Society formed the Australian Rhododendron Society in 1960 and approached the Forests Commission for a suitable site to establish a rhododendron garden. A 20ha site, extended to 40ha in 1975, was selected from the Olinda State Forest on the eastern ridge of Mount Dandenong. In 1995, the National Rhododendron Gardens came under the management of Melbourne Parks and Waterways (now Parks Victoria)..
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The gardens are a combination of individual gardens and spaces, each different. Each area, however, contains rhododendrons chosen for their growth habit and their ability to fit in with the other plants of that garden.
In a previous lifetime, when working in Chicago, my escape was landscape gardening, literally redoing, entirely on my own, every square inch of the existing overgrown jungle I found in the two houses I inhabited. I never tried a perennial garden, being more interested in the structural design of plants than flowers. But I did develop a love of rhododendrons...both for their evergreen foliage and magnificent floral displays. Thus, a few years ago, I actually put one on each side of the patio, my only contribution to the natural landscape I found here.
They've done only okay...but spending the winter entirely buried in snow with temps often well below zero probably takes a toll...as it does with some people. :-) And last winter, deer decided to do heavy pruning on one of them, a surprise because they hadn't bothered them previously.
In any event, though much more sparse in vegetation and, as you can see here, displaying cold damage on the leaves, they endure and throw out a few blooms every year.
The Native Rhododendron in this area, Rhododendron macrophyllum. This plant is from a large specimen, which was brought in long ago. Dappled sunlight drifts across the shadows and lights upon this bud.
Rhododendrons are extremely common in the Smoky Mountains and I always thought of them as being native to the Appalachians... clearly I was wrong.
Very neat seeing these beautiful flowering plants which are giants in their own right, alongside the super giant redwoods.
Not in my garden!
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