Rhododendron Garden Tour 2026 | #2

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]It's a nice, beautiful, relaxing Sunday morning and I'm sitting here on my front porch and you can see we're not quite done yet. We've been working on landscaping the front bed here and I got a whole bunch of rocks put up around the circle driveway.

[00:00:18]That's actually about I think it's about 23 22 foot diameter. So, it's bigger than it looks in the camera here, but I got a little bit of bark to fill in here. And then I'm getting more rocks to finish all the way around here, but everything is in peak bloom right now. Some have gone out, some are still coming in, but uh I thought we'd take you out here and just take you for a little walk and show you what we got going on. We got roies all the way around to this side of the house here. This is mostly that species garden way back in here that I take you over to.

[00:00:58]Yes, I have an excavator and a dump truck out there because I'm still working on all this rock.

[00:01:04]Let's go take a look at it.

[00:01:08]We got some hanging baskets Shel's going to get up. Finally got all this portion bked. We ended up doing a Japanese maple here, Japanese maple here. They're lace leaf weeping. And then we've got some Everest Aelas. They're evergreen. It's close enough to the house I don't think I got to worry about deer. And then you can't really see it, but there's a little twig. Let's zoom it in. There's a little twig right there. Right there.

[00:01:39]And that is a panacle hydrangeanger.

[00:01:42]And it's going to have those massive blooms when we get to uh the midsummer fall. And we've got another one over here. And then the Everest Aelas going around the corner. I love the white of those Everest aelas.

[00:01:59]And then I went ahead and decided to plant some teddy bear because they look really pretty with their copper growth and their their fuzzy underside. And then we've got some pieras throughout some hydrangeanger. We've got some deciduous aelas, a red leaf maple, my Nancy Evans.

[00:02:22]I showed that in the previous video. And then this one. Look, you guys have to see this. There goes the cat. Absolutely beautiful. My Senator Jackson.

[00:02:33]I love this road to dendran. It's going to be front and center right here every time we walk up to the house.

[00:02:39]beautiful roodendrin.

[00:02:41]And then we just picked up this hydrangeanger. It's a new one. Um, it's just these dark leaves and then supposed to be really dark blooms. In fact, I still left a tag on there. Let's look at it.

[00:02:57]So, it's an eclipse. Big leaf hydrangeanger eclipse. Let's get that under the leaf.

[00:03:04]Hey, Cat. And that's what the blooms are supposed to look like. So, I think it looks really good with that dark color in the landscape. We've got a uh um lilac. Now, that lilac is a uh offspring of one that we had planted over here. It was already here when we bought the property. Somebody had planted it previously and we just wanted to keep that as a part of our landscape. So, I've kept it. I dug it up before we did all that trenching for the power line and water line and kept it cuz we knew we wanted to plant it and keep it on the property at some point.

[00:03:41]This just a beautiful view. It's getting there slowly but surely.

[00:03:47]It's getting there. If the truck wasn't in the way, you'd see more blooms over there. A lot more work to do here, but we've got our Nancy Evans. That's right.

[00:03:57]Peak bloom right now. It every bud has bloomed. And you can see all those little white tags. That's all my pollination I've got going on. I did that last week. So, whatever's pollinated is pollinated. So, that cat can brush against it all at once. And it's not going to hurt anything.

[00:04:15]So, let's start over here and see what we got going on. Like mid-season. So, we're about a week after Mother's Day.

[00:04:21]We are exactly a week after Mother's Day.

[00:04:24]And we've got our Let me get around this truck here.

[00:04:31]We've got our Hallelujah.

[00:04:34]I'm just going to kind of walk through this quickly for you because you saw this just in that last video, but now you can see the update on how things are going. The teddy bear with its new growth starting. Finally got Lem's monarch starting to jump out there at you.

[00:04:51]I love that one. I love this one when it's big in the landscape and you've got multiple you've got like, you know, when it's really big and you've got this stage and this stage cuz you get the by color. It looks really nice. I've got one over in the other side of the property and I'll show it to you. It's a little It's a little bigger and further along.

[00:05:13]Mindy's Love.

[00:05:20]You can hear all the bees buzzing.

[00:05:24]The bees are buzzing like crazy and they are pollinating everything and all those uh Loyite King George, they're kind of getting towards the end.

[00:05:37]We had it's been cool the last week or two. It's been really cool weather and we've gotten a lot of rain in the last few days which is really good for these road dinners. It just helps all the new growth. That's pomegranate splash down in there. It just helps all the new growth be more lush and beautiful and it always uh it's always nice when we have a nice wet rainy uh nice wet rainy spring because everything just kind of it holds on to the blooms longer because of the cooler weather and just everything grows like crazy. I think I said this in a previous video, but uh um flowers are like 90% water. And so if you don't water them enough as they're blooming, they're not going to be as big and full. And so that's a little tip for you. If you're struggling with your blooms, try just get keeping a lot of moisture at the roots during the bloom season.

[00:06:35]I just planted this one here uh last week. magnolia sensation.

[00:06:43]And that was a beautiful yellow magnolia. So, had to have it. Now, that's going to start growing. It's supposed to get like 25 foot tall and uh maybe 8 foot wide. We'll see. We'll see.

[00:06:55]Those tags are always lying. We never know what the truth is until we see with our own eyes and time. And most of those tags are usually in the within 10 years, at least with roies. Anyway, we've got Virginia Richards.

[00:07:13]Virginia Richards coming out. This one doesn't have as many blooms this year.

[00:07:17]It's not as packed. Still struggling with that uh lace bug.

[00:07:23]I need to The new growth will be fine.

[00:07:25]So, I need to get some of that emitter on there on that those plants because it really likes to attack that Virginia Richards. But, I'm slowly getting it under control.

[00:07:38]Look at that. Our trailblazer is just in full bloom right now.

[00:07:44]That thing is looking gorgeous.

[00:07:48]That's that cross between Sappo and Mrs. Fernal.

[00:07:53]Kind of looks like Mrs. Fernal, the flower.

[00:07:56]And then uh Lavender Princess.

[00:08:03]All my grandandy florum are just starting to wake up. You can see all those buds.

[00:08:08]It's happening.

[00:08:14]Flaming star.

[00:08:17]Not a lot of blooms on that one this year.

[00:08:22]Big Sam cross with limbs cameo. And I've said this in other videos. Usually when I don't get as many blooms in one year, I get a ton the next year because all this new growth here, all all this new new little stuff you see starting to crop up, it's all going to have a flower butt on it. So the the years that are lean with the blooms tend to be heavy blooms the next year. Like this one right here, this big Sam crossed limbs cameo. I don't think it was quite as full last year and this year it won't.

[00:08:51]Or next year it won't be as well. It's It's full of blooms this year. Next year it's not going to be as full of blooms.

[00:08:58]And that's just kind of how eroded go.

[00:09:00]The bigger they get though, the more reliable they get because they're just bigger plants. And there's always going to be blooms on them. Like this dad's Indian summer. It's getting bigger and bigger every year. And no matter what the year is like, it's going to have blooms on it.

[00:09:16]And that's kind of how this landscape's gone over the years. You know, in the beginning it was small and there weren't a ton of blooms everywhere and now it's just reliable every year. And uh it was funny somebody somebody on YouTube on in a comment said um how' they say it? They say this is what you get when you're a plotter not a plan planner.

[00:09:43]when you're a plotter not a planner like I just plotted these road denins any which way I did sort of plan as I went but it's kind of hard to plan hundreds and hundreds of rodenins and the purpose of all this in the beginning was just semi-plan colors which you know it's hard to do like I put that white there cuz it was in more shade and I knew it'd be between two very colorful ones so it breaks it up and draws your eye more towards them but uh I like this I mean it's just nothing but color in the springtime time.

[00:10:14]And if if that's a bad thing, I guess I'm a plotter.

[00:10:21]It to tell you the truth, I like this natural woodland look. Not that this is natural. I mean, you wouldn't find this over in Nepal where the species grow, but I like the I don't like the planned out, lined out, you know, perfect look where you've got alternating roies, you know, and perfect squares or, you know, I'm just not into that. I like this. We live in an area that is just suitable for natural woodland kind of settings, and that's what this is. Look at that grandma's hat.

[00:10:56]That is one that a lot of people really like. Man, I should I should try to cross-pollinate something to that.

[00:11:04]That's a pretty flower. There's another one up there. That one will get big over time. We got our Denali.

[00:11:13]We've got all kinds of stuff coming in here.

[00:11:17]We've got our Gene Marie de Montigue.

[00:11:19]The honorable Gene Marie de Montigu. my rangy cuz it's in so much shade and a rose whitney that I really need to hack back. It'll fill out better. This one is borsaltt and it's filled out on its own.

[00:11:32]I haven't had to do anything to it really and it's gosh it's got to be 12t tall there at the very top. And then the the uh dogwood behind it.

[00:11:43]Our od right is nearing its end of the bloom, but Karen triplet is just beginning to open. And I really like that yellow. It's a nice nice looking bloom.

[00:11:56]Somebody asked me the other day if I dead head all my rooden, but could you imagine?

[00:12:03]There is no way. I wish the crows would dead head my rooden for me instead of yapping so much. But there's just no way. I walk through sometimes and pick some of them, but it's just impossible to try and keep on top of all this. And they don't really need it. I mean, it looks a little nicer. But I've I've got a thousand road enters probably up here.

[00:12:23]Hackman Chararmment.

[00:12:29]Look at that. Like how that kind of just shoots up like that.

[00:12:35]Look at that Denali. Isn't that pretty?

[00:12:40]Big blooms. Big beautiful pink blooms.

[00:12:44]The sun glistening off of that or the light from the clouds.

[00:12:49]Cat follows me everywhere.

[00:12:53]And we've got our uh lace cap hydrangeas. You can see last year's blooms.

[00:12:58]Those are one of my favorite hydrangeas.

[00:13:01]Our pinkwood dog or pink dogwood and Nike roedin.

[00:13:06]There's that macabum. Still no blooms.

[00:13:09]All right, let's get over here.

[00:13:13]Do you guys remember the last video?

[00:13:15]It's a couple weeks ago I did it where I uh showed you this white gold and it was just massive full of blooms. Well, look how long that thing has held these blooms. I really like that aspect of this one. It has held all those blooms for like several weeks now. It's just starting to lose them. You can see little carpet of white. That's another thing I like about this one. It holds on to its color. Some rodendrins, they lose their they just start turning brown as they fall off. This one, a lot of them hold on to their color, but this one's like is really good with that. So is OD, right?

[00:13:54]Some of them, see like here's what I'm talking about.

[00:13:57]See that brown? Some of them will just do that. All the petals and blooms will be like that as they fall or you know, but this one holds on to them.

[00:14:08]We got a Nancy Evans way back in there kind of trying to pop through cuz she's competing. She's competing with white gold, but I like the contrasting color.

[00:14:17]Anything goes with white.

[00:14:21]I like the new growth of that, too. And then this one. Now, remember in that last video I said they bloom together and they're actually because that's held on so long, they are blooming together.

[00:14:31]This is that midnight.

[00:14:33]This wasn't open yet. You guys didn't see that in the last video.

[00:14:43]You guys hear all them bees? They're just everywhere.

[00:14:48]Apricot Fantasy and Hot Thai. Apricot fantasy is the peach and hot tai is the yellow.

[00:14:56]Those buds are still just about to open.

[00:15:00]The first year I planted these, first couple years, they all bloom together at the same time.

[00:15:07]Man, I need to get that bed under control.

[00:15:13]Blitz getting to the end. Oh, actually, we'll we'll circle back around. There's that ADHD again, Mark.

[00:15:25]We got fire rim.

[00:15:29]Oh, and the eruption.

[00:15:32]Eruption starting. Look at this. I'm going to zoom in here.

[00:15:38]There it is. Is she pretty?

[00:15:43]And then we got Alec G. Holmes.

[00:15:46]Needs a good pruning.

[00:15:49]But isn't that pretty?

[00:15:52]That's one thing I just love about road dinner is the by color. The the buds start off just a deeper color than what they end up. And so it in the middle of the bloom, it really uh really compliments them. Looks neat. Ooh, cherry cheesecake open for you guys.

[00:16:10]Look at this.

[00:16:13]Isn't that pretty? It's like It's like Hackman Chararmment that I showed you a minute ago, but with a nicer, deeper little red eye there.

[00:16:23]Really pretty road dendrin.

[00:16:27]It's got a weak base though. The the stem, the roots always it wants to fall over, but it's starting to get established. I've had it a long time.

[00:16:35]Dell is nearing its end.

[00:16:40]Then we've got our Arnold Piper. Big massive blooms.

[00:16:46]Look at that.

[00:16:48]Look at those blooms. They're huge. I wish you guys could see this in person.

[00:16:52]They're just magnificent.

[00:16:55]And I've got some King George on there.

[00:16:58]Many moons. I've done some crossing. I got some crosspollination going on back there, too. So, we'll see what happens.

[00:17:05]This is Fantastica.

[00:17:09]And it's fantastic. It's pretty fantastic.

[00:17:13]If I get these weeds out of the way.

[00:17:17]There we go.

[00:17:21]Xaliber. It's not doing too much this year.

[00:17:27]More blitz. Here's that. This is one of I've got actually four four or five of them planted in here. These are bigger.

[00:17:35]It's not kind of doing it justice because I think it's a a lower blooming year for this one. But this is Lim's monarch, the one I showed you way at the beginning. And it's got more blooms on it. So, you can kind of see the effect, but it's a weaker blooming year. I think my neighbors over there cutting up some wood or something.

[00:17:57]Cintilation nearing its end. We've got blue enen.

[00:18:05]One of my wife's favorites. Getting that lace bug.

[00:18:10]Somebody at work asked me what was wrong with the road to dendran the other day and I said, "Show me a picture." And I think her husband took a picture and she showed it to me and immediately lace bug. I mean, it's so telltale. It's so easy to to find um and see what the problem is when it's lace bug.

[00:18:32]That is a beautiful rodend.

[00:18:36]And I've told you guys in other videos, this one reminds me of Nateton Loy Rickle from Rainer Roadendrrons.

[00:18:43]They gave me this one.

[00:18:47]And for some reason, I always have to think for about 5 minutes before I remember its name. It's a lady. Lady de Rothschild. There we go. I just need to start with that. It's a lady.

[00:19:00]Same with Edith Bosley, which is not blooming yet. That's a purple. I can never remember Edith Bosley. I always remember the B and I want to I want to say B from the start and it's not B. Wow, he's really going to town over there. I think he's blowing his roof off or something.

[00:19:18]So hopefully you guys can hear me over all that. This is kind of killing the garden ambiance, isn't it?

[00:19:25]This is Black Widow and that's fully open now. This one's still starting to open. And isn't that a cool road to Denry? Just a real dark color. I wanted to show you guys that.

[00:19:38]It's getting bigger. It's getting more established. We're getting more blooms.

[00:19:41]I really like that one.

[00:19:44]And let's go over here. Show you Vincent Van Go.

[00:19:52]It's a neat one.

[00:19:56]Now we got to get out of here. Get over to the other side.

[00:20:02]And then we got our Virginia Richards and our Northf is still hanging on to those blooms. That amazing.

[00:20:10]Here is a gigantic.

[00:20:15]Here is a gigantic limbs monarch right here.

[00:20:20]And it's actually further along in the bloom cycle, so you can't see as much that by color, but Lim's Cameo, an old time, oldfashioned favorite. Lots of really neat hybrids came from this one, like Nancy Evans.

[00:20:43]There's Limb's Cameo.

[00:20:45]That's a It's got really good genetics and I believe it's a polyloid and that's where I think you know all these a lot some of these polyloids got their genetics yeah how they became polyloys they got passed down from that to Nancy Evans and on to you know varieties like Horizon Monarch right here.

[00:21:09]You can see the similarities, the new growth in this one right here. It's kind of a copper color.

[00:21:17]It's a really neat color there. And then look, that carried through cuz this has uh this has that rooden in its genetics.

[00:21:26]And so you can kind of see a little bit of that copper in there and the same red down here. And anyway, hallelujah.

[00:21:38]All right, let's head over to the other side before I get blown away by a a blower. So, check this out. This is Mount St. Helens deciduous aelia. And if you ever get a chance to pick one of these up, I highly recommend it. It smells nice. All the deciduous aelas smell really nice. This one is just super fragrant. I've told you before there's not a lot of fragrant rooden, but deciduous aelas are super fragrant.

[00:22:09]I mean, on a nice sunny morning when the sun's hitting those and it's releasing its its uh smells and all that, you can be anywhere in this area and you can smell it. I love that thing. And I've got another one called Klondike. I actually planted up front in our front bed. My graph zeppelin are starting to open up all along there. little hedge of them. This is a I I did a Japanese maple seed sprouting video from many years ago. And uh there was a guy back on the east coast who sent me some seeds because he said he showed me pictures too. This one had kind of a pink leaf color in the fall. Well, this is that seedling still growing. It's a good I don't 8 feet tall now and it's getting there.

[00:23:00]It'll get big eventually.

[00:23:05]We got all my my whole hedge of granny florum back in there. Another Cherokee brave pink dogwood there.

[00:23:13]A lot of these are kind of kiwi magic.

[00:23:15]Uh horizon serenity. They're all kind of coming to an end. I hate this stuff. Do you guys have this? I hate this weed. It sticks. I don't mind it right now. It's really easy to pull off. It's when it starts getting those round balls of little seeds all over them and they stick to everything.

[00:23:32]Look at this honey butter. I love the new growth.

[00:23:37]See, to me, the new growth on a lot of these road dendrins is like a second bloom cuz it's so interesting and beautiful to look at.

[00:23:53]We still got things coming in. Gold bucket hasn't bloomed yet. GW leaks done. Look at this. This is that mango tango.

[00:24:02]I This was This was heavily infestated with lace bug. And now I think I've pretty much almost completely eradicated it from this plant. But look at that beautiful blooms, new growth. It's recovering. It's starting to look really nice. It's that orangey peachy kind of color.

[00:24:24]Ebony pearl that dark rooden. I like some of these different kind of interesting roden like this. They got neat dark flower on it.

[00:24:39]We got all kinds of neat stuff. Stuff coming in, stuff going out. There's a variegated rodendin. Super flimmer.

[00:24:46]There's a gold flimmer, too, but this is super flimmer.

[00:24:50]That's kind of an interesting variegated. There's hardly any variegated rooaden.

[00:24:55]Oh, let's come back over here real quick.

[00:24:59]This is another baby horizon monarch of that big one over there by the limbs cameo.

[00:25:05]It's actually I was hoping it'd be in more bloom, but it's it's kind of coming to the end, too. You can see there's Shelly yelling for the dog. He's over here, hun.

[00:25:18]I've got some more uh some more uh I've got some more crosspollination I've been doing.

[00:25:35]And we got the species garden.

[00:25:38]Let's kind of come around. See, look at all that teddy bear. All that new growth starting to pop up through there.

[00:25:46]Jeez, man. Come out here on a peaceful Sunday morning, next thing I get is people blowing the roofs off. I have to come out here at midnight.

[00:25:58]I guess you get what you get and you don't throw a fit.

[00:26:02]I guess I'm kind of throwing a fit. This is that uh Austini that I was telling you guys about last I think it was in full bloom when I showed this one before. But all those blooms, those little bluish kind of flowers. Most of them have fallen off. We got a little carpet under there.

[00:26:21]Fortuni that's a species. A lot of these are Oh, look at this blind date is opening up. Not There were a ton of blooms on it last year. This year it's sparse, but look at the size of those seed pods. But look at this thing. It's just a beautiful color. Isn't that striking? That yellow in there. And any light that comes through there just magnifies that yellow.

[00:26:44]There's one that's kind of nearing its end. But as they're opening up, that's just beautiful. I love that yellow.

[00:26:56]Very, very slight fragrance. Very slight.

[00:27:01]Did you guys see cherry float yet? I'm not sure if you saw that one. I don't know if it was blooming last time.

[00:27:09]Cherry floats nearing its end, actually.

[00:27:14]I used that and cross-pollinated some things as well.

[00:27:19]Jeez, I don't know how this is going to turn out. You guys want to see this one with all that noise in the background?

[00:27:24]Lord almighty.

[00:27:27]supposed to be a day of rest.

[00:27:37]Lots of neat stuff coming out.

[00:27:44]This one, I always forget that one, but this one's uh Hills Low Yellow. And what's this? Dappled Dawn. Dappled Don.

[00:27:51]Is it Dappel Dawn? It's Dappel Dawn. I guess I don't forget it. But look at that bloom. Look at that.

[00:28:00]Isn't that pretty?

[00:28:02]Dapple Dawn. From a distance in the camera, it doesn't look like much, but from where I'm standing right now, I can see it clearly. Um, you know, some of this you just got to see in person. I try to get good close-ups for you guys of the stuff that's really blooming nicely.

[00:28:22]Then you can go out and decide which ones you want to buy, especially if you live in the Pacific Northwest because this is the area for growing roodendrrons.

[00:28:36]This is the area for growing road dinners. I mean, there's there's other areas, but this is the best.

[00:28:50]This one is Lord Roberts.

[00:28:52]Now we got cars starting. Geez, I should have got up three hours ago. Lord Roberts is such a beautiful like wine kind of color. Just a deep red wine. I love that. Not even fully open. We got lots of buds. Took a little while for this one to get established, but now that it's established, it's beautiful.

[00:29:14]And then we've got our Chinese ground cover. That's my name for it. Anyway, what's the You guys probably want to know the real name. Oh, PL Plumm.

[00:29:31]There we go. Pleanthm. Ptoylm. Pleanthm.

[00:29:35]Let's get that back in there. And every year I see a new one pop up somewhere.

[00:29:39]Last year this one popped up. And they'll spread. They'll keep going.

[00:29:45]One of these years I'm gonna get all this pruned up again. Looking good.

[00:29:49]Senorita cherry. One of the very first road dinners I ever bought. Probably almost 20 years ago. Senorita cherry.

[00:29:57]Or maybe it's cheer. I said cherry.

[00:30:02]Maybe it's senorita cheer. It's ch h e r e. Many moons is nearing its end. We got Nancy Evans over here exploding with blooms. Isn't that beautiful? exploding with blooms. Look at that.

[00:30:19]The cameras never do it justice. I don't know what to say. And then uh flaming star behind it there. This one this this little pile starting to kind of fade out here. This is my orangey yellow peachy bed.

[00:30:36]That's it. For those of you who like purple, this is a tried andrue classic.

[00:30:40]Been around forever. Anna Kruski and it just performs year after year after year after year after year.

[00:30:50]There you go guys. That's your update. I think that concludes this little walkth through.

[00:30:56]I hope you appreciated all of the beautiful ambiance going on around us.

[00:31:00]It started out really beautiful.

[00:31:04]Anyway, that's life.

[00:31:07]Like I said, you get what you get and you don't throw a fit.