B^to^olientiron ^ocietp ^otts;. 
RHODODENDRONS AT BORDE HILL. 
Contributed by Lieut.-Colonel Stephenson R. Clarke, C.B. 
If a garden be like a nation, happy when it has no history, my garden has 
passed a year of good fortune, for I find it very difficult to recollect anything that 
appears to me to be of especial interest. I had my anxieties during the great 
frost of the early months, but they proved groundless, at least there are no deaths 
to record. Rhododendrons oxyphyllum and sublanceolatum were severely 
cut, as also were to a lesser extent Bullatum and the Chinese form of IMaddenii. 
After the great frost broke I am told that at many places trouble from frost did 
not again occur, but that was not so here ; R. moupinense was the first Rhodo¬ 
dendron to open its buds, but it only lasted in bloom for two or three days before 
a frost destroyed the flowers entirely ; its successor R. dauricum met with the 
same fate, R. lutescens was ready to follow, but most of its buds were destroyed 
before they opened. 
Most Rhododendrons were late in flowering. I was away from home for a few 
days in the spring, and when I returned on the 7th April, barb.4TUM, fulgens 
and STRiGiLLOSUM were the only ones in flower. The only mischievous frosts 
that I recollect after this were one on the 13th or 14th June, and another early 
in October, the former disfigured a few leaves on Falconeri, and the latter again 
cut Chinese Maddenii and Bullatum, the unripened points of the young growths 
suffering. I was interested to find that Indian forms of Maddenii and 
Edgeworthii were neither injured by this early frost nor by the great frost of 
the winter, at the same time I do not feel able to draw any comparison between 
the respective hardiness of the plants as the Indian Maddenii and Edgeworthii 
are considerably older plants and had better shelter. 
I have often wondered at the remarkable power possessed b}^ R. Hodgsonii 
of curling round the edges of the leaves towards their midribs during a dr)^ 
frost, but last year although it certainly did marvels and quite kept up its 
reputation for looking miserable in cold weather, it was surpassed in its winter 
sport of curling by both calophytum and strigillosum. During the frost 
which now grips us Hodgsonii has been unable to roll up its leaves at all, as the 
first cold day brought a heavy fall of wet snow which adhering to the leaves 
and freezing on them formed “ splints ” which compelled them to preserve their 
shape. 
I find my plants of R. intricatum have improved greatly since I caused the 
lateral growths to be layered annually, while leaving them after rooting attached 
to the parent plant. 
The season has proved to be an excellent one for the production of flower 
buds, especially on the large-leaved Himalayan species. 
STEPHENSON R. CLARKE. 
December, 1917. 
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