What is the significance of the rhododendron maximum

Get garden design ideas Find your perfect garden. Find the plants that work for you Ideas for seasons and regions. Design your garden Use our interactive tools to design your dream garden. Find your Hardiness Zone. Where are you based? Find your Climate Zone. Find your Heat Zone. My Region USA. Create New Collection. Please Login to Proceed. Join Gardenia. Join now and start creating your dream garden! Create a New Collection Collection Name. Collection Description Optional.

For your reference. Cancel Create Collection. Subscribe to Gardenia. Go to Garden Design Tools Done. Although hardy in eastern Canadian gardens, Rhododendron maximum does not penetrate naturally into Canada.

While there are historical accounts from Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, none of them, to my knowledge, have been authenticated. In its native range, rosebay rhododendron also known as great-laurel or great rhododendron thrives along cool, moist streams in the shade of hemlocks and a rich myriad of hardwoods.

The smooth leaves among the largest of eastern rhododendron species at centimetres or eight inches long are arranged in a whorl at the end of each branch. As a broadleaf evergreen, its leaves remain year round. Among rhododendron species its leaves are the first to droop and curl up tightly when the temperature drops below 0C 32F , a strategy to prevent moisture loss in the leaf tissue.

As the temperature rises above freezing again, the leaves unfurl and look striking in the winter garden. Another attractive feature of this species is its superior cold hardiness. Its preferred sheltered, streamside habitat suggests that high humidity is beneficial to this species so placing it out of windy and exposed locations is important.

It is very shade-tolerant and can survive and even flower lightly under the canopies of many forest species. It looks its best in partial sun along the edge of a woodland garden, although exposures to strong sun at mid-day in summer and strong late-winter sun are best avoided, especially in northern climates where the ground can freeze for six or more weeks.

Exposure to late winter sun will significantly warm the leaves, causing moisture loss, and when the roots are frozen, the plant is robbed of its ability to replenish moisture to its leaves. This explains why rhododendrons in northern gardens are more frequently killed by winter desiccation than the absolute low temperatures they experience.

Tolerates close to full shade. Avoid hot summer locations. Roots must never be allowed to dry out. Acidify soils prior to planting and thereafter as needed.

Plant in a location protected from strong winter winds. Shallow, fibrous root systems do not cultivate around plants will benefit greatly from a mulch e. All parts of this plant are highly toxic if ingested. Rhododendron maximum , commonly called rosebay rhododendron or great laurel, is a large, upright, loose, multi-stemmed, late-blooming, evergreen shrub that is native to North America from Ontario and Nova Scotia south to Ohio, Alabama and Georgia with a concentration of plants in the southern Appalachian Mountains where it typically grows in dense thickets which dominate the understory in some locations.

Flowers bloom in umbel-like inflorescences from June to early July. Fruit is an oblong seed capsule which splits open when ripe to release numerous seed. Genus name comes from the Greek words rhodo meaning rose and dendron meaning tree. Transferred from the Greek name for Nerium oleander.

A healthy plant in the proper environment should have limited problems. For suitable alternatives, see this video created by Charlotte Glen as part of the Plants, Pests, and Pathogens series.

Rhododendron catawbiense. Rhododendron periclymenoides. Tweet this Page Share on Facebook.