I’ve had a thing for Rhododendrons for quite some time. What’s not to like? Dark evergreen leaves on a dense, nicely formed shrub that will add interest year round to your gardens. Top that off with spectacular, showy trusses of flowers in the spring and you have the ideal shrub. Here in Vermont however, I find myself on the borderland of where these captivating plants can be successfully grown. But maybe frontier is a better description - a place where limits are tested and new ideas in plant breeding reveal possibility. The old standby, Rhododendron ‘Roseum Elegans’, with its mauve colored flowers, was about the only “Rhody” you would see in landscapes north of Massachusetts. But I was curious. What else was out there? So starting in the mid 1980’s, I began a quest to learn about what other options existed in the serious Rhododendron collector’s world. I soon found there were several dedicated enthusiasts who were working, sometimes for their entire careers, at developing new forms that are adaptable to more northern climes. David Leach in Madison, OH; Ed Mezitt, Hopkinton, MA; Weldon Delp, Harrisville, PA; and Charles Dexter, Sandwich, MA, are just a few of the pioneers who spent lifetimes developing more cold hardy plants for northern gardeners. Some of their results, along with the efforts of others, can be seen in the collection at Lincoln Hill. The photos below of some of these varieties planted in our garden over the last 40 years will give one a sense of the possibilities.

A sampler of Rhododendron flowers from the exceptional 2021 season. With a minimum winter low of only -10F, and an abundant bud set in 2020, almost all the cultivars in the LHBG collection bloomed profusely .