^tjobobenbron ^odetp ^otesi. 
GROWING LARGE-LEAVED RHODODENDRONS. 
Many gardeners find a difficulty in growing some of the large-leaved species, 
such as R. GRAND£ or its hybrid R. “ Elsae.” I have found that it pays to 
grow small layers or seedlings of these large-leaved species partly under glass 
for two years. The layers are often but scantily rooted, and the plant has 
a hard struggle its first winter, and dies in its second one. 
My plan is to put the layer or seedlings into a wooden box with plenty of 
leaf-mould in the soil, and then plunge the box in the border of an early peach 
house. If the house is heated so much the better, but nowadays coke is too 
valuable to waste on early peaches. But in any case the house will be shut up 
and the trees started early in January. The rhododendron, of course, starts its 
growth, and keeps growing without a check of any sort. By May the growth is 
completed, and then the box should be lifted and plunged again out of doors in 
a shady place; under a north or west wall is an excellent site. By the middle 
or end of October the plant should be again plunged in the peach house, and 
left there till the following I\Iay. It can then be moved again, box and aU, to its 
summer quarters and finally planted out in the garden in the autumn. 
The advantages of this method are well worth the trouble taken to obtain 
them. The plant has had two seasons growth without any check from frost 
or drought. It may quite well make from two to three feet of good growdh in the 
two seasons, and if the soil was suited to rhododendrons the box wall be full of 
excellent roots. It is a great pull to have a well-grown and well-rooted plant 
to put out, as such a plant will stand a hard winter, or any other adverse con¬ 
dition, much better than a stunted or badly-rooted specimen. 
My plan has also the great advantage of giving the plant plenty of time to 
ripen its wood, and really ripe wood will stand a very hard winter without 
flinching. I do not suggest that all this trouble is required in Cornwall or other 
favoured parts of Greatt Britain and Ireland, but here in Susse.x, 440 feet above 
sea level, it pays over and over again. 
I am now growing a fine young seedling of R. sinogrande on this plan, and 
I hope by October, 1921, to have a real big plant to put out in the garden. If 
this species is just on the border line of true hardiness, I feel sure m}^ method 
will give me the best chance to get it established. 
CHARLES G. A. NIX. 
236 
