RHODODENDRONS 
MAGNIFICENT is the Rhododendron, monarch 
of the garden. On the throne of its eternal dark 
jade leaves it bears the crown jewels of the flower 
kingdom, rubies and glowing amethysts and great 
pearls. 
In winter its foliage gleams majestically through 
the snow. When other leaves have fallen, those of 
the Rhododendron remain the only ones of large 
size enduring our northern rigors. 
For a shaded garden wall, a cool foundation bed, 
a tree-studded lawn, a brookside, or the edge of the 
woodland, no other shrub so completely fulfills the 
gardener’s heart’s desire. 
But the forms of Rhododendron are legion, and 
now explorers who roll back the curtain from dark 
corners of the world, are revealing hundreds more. 
One is a tall tree, another a tussock. One flowers 
blood-red, another yellow, another blue. The leaf 
of one is as long as your arm, of another is smaller 
than a baby’s fingernail. One flourishes in the arc¬ 
tic, another hugs the tropics. 
