When we moved in to our current home in the early 1990s we inherited a shrub that needed some TLC. Despite our best endeavours there came a time when we decided to call it a day and dug it up.
We must have had fit of remorse because we eventually transferred it to a tub that just happened to be spare. It looked a bit forlorn with just a short trunk and two green shoots; but it survived and after a couple of years it had grown into this.
 |
| Rhododendron - one flower (2008) |
The next year in a larger plot the flower had grown quite impressively.
 |
| Impressive flower (and a second on its way) |
When it grew too big for its boots/pot it was time for it to go back into the garden. By 2012 the whole shrub was a thing to be admired.
 |
| Rhododendron behind the foxgloves and lupins - 2012 |
Now there is a second shrub in a large pot next to it which has had one red flower this year. I wonder just how long we will have to wait for them to be as grown up as these.
 |
| Rhododendron - Fowey Hall Hotel, Cornwall |
Perhaps they think that those Cornish shrubs have an unfair advantage with the weather better there than in the North East of England - not that there is much difference during the current heat wave.
All of them will have to shoot up a bit to catch up with the self-setting sunflower - not fully grown.
 |
| Eight feet tall & growing bigger all the time. |
