Help From Unexpected Quarters
We don’t usually think of azaleas as being a big contributor to fall leaf color, but sometimes they are. This is azalea ‘Pride’s Pale Lilac’. I have no idea why this isn’t a wildly popular garden shrub. It was hybridized many years ago by Joseph Gable, one of the pioneers of breeding rhododendrons and azaleas, whose goal was breeding hardy plants that would survive in Pennsylvania without coddling. Orlando Pride, another famous man in azalea and rhododendron breeding, bought hundreds of un-named azalea seedlings from Joseph Gable’s nursery, and out of all the plants grown, this was by far the hardiest, and Pride named it ‘Pale Lilac’ (it’s more often now called ‘Pride’s Pale Lilac’). It obviously has a lot of Azalea poukhanense in it.
I’ve grown it for perhaps 25 years, and it’s only failed to bloom heavily in about three of those years; most years it is covered in large, funnel-shaped dusty lilac flowers (I was growing it north of here in a zone 4 garden for many years). The plant itself has taken -35 degrees with no damage. It rapidly forms a large 6 x 6 foot shrub, grows like a weed even in heavy clay soil, and forms offshoots like a strawberry; every year I dig up one or two new plants and move them elsewhere in the garden.
What do the big box stores sell instead… large-leaved (elepidote) rhododendrons and tender evergreen azaleas that all turn up their toes in their first Iowa winter. I guess that’s how you get repeat business.
