It’s rhododendron season

One of the most colourful times of year in your garden.

THE Scottish Rhododendron Festival is now in full swing.

This is the third year that it has taken place and it has grown to include almost 60 Scottish gardens.

So I decided to go east, to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, which has a fine collection of species rhododendrons.

The difference between a botanic garden and any other kind is bit like comparing a zoo with a pet shop. Whilst the latter is filled with animals that have had most of their wild traits bred out of them, the creatures in a zoo haven’t forgotten what their teeth and claws are for.

Fortunately, plants don’t bite, but the rhododendrons in the RBGE have mostly been grown from seed collected in steep gorges and Himalayan hillsides so they are truly wild.

What’s really impressive when you see many growing together is that you begin to appreciate how different they all are. From tiny shrubs to some as large as trees, often with twisted trunks as beautiful as any piece of garden sculpture.

My favourites are the deciduous azaleas, which a few years back were reclassified as rhododendrons, and the day I was at the Botanics these were just beginning to open their flowers, filling the spring air with their perfume.

Kenneth Cox, plant hunter and rhododendron specialist has bred many varieties of rhododendrons at his nursery, Glendoick Gardens in Perth.

He says: “This year’s season is off to a great start with many gardens full of rhododendron colour already.

“Some might say the rhododendron is Scotland’s second national flower.

“Although they don’t originate in Scotland, rhododendrons are very much at home here.

“In fact Scotland is one of the places where woodland gardening with rhododendrons was invented. Hundreds of spectacular species thrive here and create stunning displays.”

According to Kenneth, some of the most stunning displays can be found in the north at Inverewe and Attadale Gardens, at Glendoick Gardens and Branklyn in Perth, and at Dawyck, Glenwhan, Castle Kennedy and Logan in the south of the country.

But Kenneth says beautiful rhododendrons can be found growing across the length and breadth of Scotland.

And it’s not just the rhododendrons, but the flowers that grow alongside them, that make any of the gardens in the Rhododendron Festival worth a visit.

Make for the rhododendrons and often you’ll find yourself walking through glades filled with wood anemones and trilliums, or where candelabra primulas hold their flowers aloft in colourful whorls.

If Scotland can claim to have invented this style of woodland garden then, it really is something special and you have until May 31 to discover it for yourself.

A full list of the gardens participating can be found at visitscotland.com/bloom