In article , Pam wrote:

Plato wrote:

We are in the process of soliciting bids/designs to replace the
builder supplied landscaping in our house with something a bit nicer.
Our house is about a year old and resides in Northern Virginia.

Our current landscaping consists of a row of Uwanamous (not sure how
this is supposed to be spelled) plants against the house, with
azaleas in front, and some junipers around our light post. Also a
couple of holly's are thrown in. The builder also strategicaly placed
a cherry tree so in ten years it will block the front of our house.

So far all the bids that we have received thus far recommend that we
remove the Azaleas that the builder installed (along with everything
else). I'm not sure what type they are, but they have red flowers
that are currently in bloom. None of the bids call for using
Rhododendrons (which many of our neighbors have used to replace the
uwanamous plants.)

So, my wife, being a fan of Azaleas, wants to know why none of the
landscapers want to keep them, and why absolutely none of the three
designs we have received thus far call for using any type of azalea or
rhododendron (which she also likes).

There is a huge re-market for rhodies & azaleas. They transplant easily, &
are greatly in demand. Sleezy landscapers want to take with them any
plants they can easily dig up without injury (rhodies have shallow root
systems easy to dig up without harming), & easy to sell quickly for a
damned good profit. If they're giving you the impression they think these
should go to the city compost, they're scamming you so they can make a
noticeable side-profit while swapping you shrubs for shrubs.

There is also the possibility of an honest motivation. SOME ironclad
rhodies & a few azaleas are so bloody common, a good landscaper might
personally be bored with them, & want to go for something a bit rare. But
not many landscapers do this frankly; they don't go for rarities at all,
which is why the whole new neighborhood ended up so many euonymous
initially.

An honest landscaper might personally be bored with common ironclads, it
is true; these are the oldest basic rhodies, very nice shrubs really, but
most of them bloom May/June & look too similar the rest of the year, &
housing developments like to use them because they're hard to kill &
they're available without a long search. I could see perhaps removing a
couple ironcalds if they're all too similar, but not all of them, & not to
the exclusion of any more varied types of azaleas or rhodies.

Since the removed rhodies will go to another market, you could sell them
yourself rather than have a landscape abscond with them pretending they
were worthless. And what such a landscaper (if honest) should be open to
(even if disinterested in using common ironclads) is an array of less
common rhodies -- types that can be staggered to bloom through a minimum
of four months of the year, that have different kinds of leaves & don't
all look the same when not blooming, & perhaps break up this array with
deciduous azaleas or other types of shrubs altogether.

Sadly, if you do not aggressively participate in landscaping choices
you'll end up with whatever the landscaper can get cheaply & charge dearly
to install. Some landscapers are sick of the preferences of mere plebians
(which do tend toward ironclads) but if they can't work with ironclads
constructively, they're not worth their salt, & if they demean your
preferences, they already hate you too much to do a good job. Plus, a
PROPER and VARIED array of rhodies & azaleas WOULD include at least a
couple of the tried & true ironclads, just would not be limited to them.

As your wife likes azaleas & rhodies, then any decent landscaper will take
that into consideration & work them into a layout & design. If knowing
these are the already-installed items you like, they insist on getting rid
of them, then there IS a sinister motive. Either they despise you for your
taste; or figure they can rob you of popular plants they'll be able to
sell in a trice; or they are such crappy landscapers they only have one
general design in mind & just have to remove everything to start over, &
have no SKILLED capacity to look at what is actually there that can be
increased in character without having to begin from scratch. I'd like to
see a list of plants they wanted to install instead -- chances are they're
no less common than the rhodies they want to haul away, it's just that
ONLY the rhodies have an instant re-sell (other big shrubs not
transplanting as reliably).

If they know you like these shrubs & respond by saying they're going to
remove them, it's the same telling an architect you want vaulted ceilings
& they insist that claustrophic ceilings are better for your heat bill &
so your wishes stink & they won't do it that way, & all three floors of
your house end up feeling like low-ceilinged basements. Their real reason
was that they could dash together a clapboard more easily than provide the
vaulted ceilings! And landscapers who eradicate everything to start over,
&don't care about your preferences, likewise don't want to have to think &
individualize properly.

What do I tell her?

That you're having trouble finding an honest or skillful landscape
designer? Just respect her wishes -- not the overbearing insistancies of
landscapers who sound second rate & calculating at the very least.

Did you ask the designers? Where I live, rhodies and azaleas are so
ubiquitous as to be boring in the extreme. They offer an extremely short
bloom season, then sit as dull green lumps for the other 11+ months of the
year.

This odd attitude I hear now & then, from people who plant comparatively
vastly more boring shrubs such as boxes & japanese hollies & photinias &
about half the hebes on the market & privet honeysuckle.....shrubs that
either don't bloom much or have tiny barely seen flowers that last two or
three weeks. My sundry counter-arguments would include:

1) Well, for deciduous azaleas, none of the above applies at all. They go
through the most antic & marvelous seasonal changes. There is type of
shrub in the world that is more exciting than a large Exbury intensely
flowering in spring, with gorgeously crinkly summer greens, with intense
autumn colors equal to the impact of spring bloom, & a winter limb
strucuture with buds swelling that can't be beat. I bought my "White
Throad" azalea years ago in the middle of winter because the upright twig
structure was shockingly beautiful! But I'm going to assume for the rest
that by "rhodies & azaleas" you meant only the evergreens, though if these
varied & often dynamic/changing leaves are "dull green lumps" I hate to
think how dull that must make the average conifer.

2) First the issue of short bloom season. I have rhodies blooming from
March to July. Only very bad planning results in a rush of blooms in one
month then nothing the rest of the year.

3) This is the main thing: Rhody leaves are spectacular & antic. Even the
types that may superficially seem like they ought to be "static" green
leaves actually drop their leaves in two year cycles & go through a number
of slower changes. And at WORST those would only be as "bad" or boring as
conifers or boxes that change even less, have more ordinary leaves to
start with, or don't even have flowers worthy of being called flowers. But
so many evergreen rhodies in fact have extreme seasonal interest to the
leaves, in a multiude of shapes & varieties & colors. Examples of seasonal
antics:

3a) Those of the Williamsoni type (I have two, "Brickdust" &
"Whispering Rose"), toward the end of their bloom cycle, develop bright
yellow-green leaves folded into the shapes of arrowheads pointing stright
up, like an army, & slowly unfold to round convex leaves & harden to
green. These leaves are like a second bloom extending one months of bloom
into six. "Brickdust" also has brightly colored buds, so if one counts two
weeks of bright buds, four of big trusses of flowers, & two or three of
yellow arrow-heads, it is "blooming" for over 8 weeks.

3b) Many of these shrubs such as the PJMs, Oceanlake, & many Gerard
varieties, though fully evergreen, turn a gorgeous mahagony for autumn &
winter. Stewartsownia turns a bright & shiny red in autumn then loses
about half the leaves. In winter the underside of the leaves of "Starry
Night" turn purple-red, as do many other varieties.

3c) Others such as "Mood Indigo" toward end of their bloom period
develop such bright yellow new leaves that the purple flowers seem to have
been slowly displaced by bright yellow flowers, which take two weeks to
harden to green. "Hill's Bright Red" not only has five or six weeks of
enormous red pillow-buds that open into trusses of the deepest red
flowers, but when it is finished blooming it continues to produce slender
upright leaves that are themselves so brilliantly red many mistake them
flor flowers until they begin to broaden & darken into regular green
lances.

3d) Still ohers such as the species shrub R. pachytrichum but also
several fancy hybrids, the first leaves of spring look like the horns of
antelope, long & slender with a sabor-curve. When after two or three weeks
these strange leaf-buds begin to open, they are spider-like
multiple-leaves developing off just one of these horns. Absolutely
fascinating!

3e) Some leaves though less antic are colorful year round, such as
species & varieties with bright yellow or orange furry undersides.

3f) There are a few rhodies with variegated leaves, such as one strain
of "Alison Johnstone" with yellow in the green leaves.

4) A few rhodies in ideal conditions bloom twice a year. Not many
admittedly, but my "Lee's Purple" & a Korean species azalea rebloom in
autumn.

5) Many types of rhodies have brightly colored buds which appear two to
four weeks before flowering; this means a shrub in full bloom for four
weeks is in bright bud-then-bloom for six to eight weeks.

6) The leaf forms are extremely varied. The spider azalea to many people
wouldn't even be recognized as an azalea it is so strange with its
speghetti-thin leaves. The speghetti-thin rose-pink blossoms look just
like the leaves, plus it blooms a full 8 weeks OR LONGER. Many lepidote
dwarf evergreen rhodies have leaves no bigger than a pinky's fingernail,
while large-leafed varieties go all the way to the size of one's forearm.
Leaf shape ranges from filament-thin to perfectly round.

7) Some rhodies are densely leafed year round, but others lose half their
leaves in winter, & others are naturally loosely leafed all year. These
are only as beautiful as the limb structure. I've a "Milestone" that looks
like a bonzai genius spent thirty years shaping it, though I've seen other
Milestones that just looked like a twiggy branch. Even a common ironclad
like "Catawba Album," it can be EITHER a dense wide mound of leaves OR a
thinly leafed shrub with amazing zigzagging thick barky limbs totally
visible.

If rhodododrens had no blooms, they would still be high-end items for
gardens because of the showy amazing & highly varied leaf forms & colors.
To me, what a shrub looks like & behaves like when NOT in bloom that
matters greatly, & I've chosen many of my rhodies when not in bloom for
their woody structure & leaves, with the assumption that when they look
that great not in bloom, the flowers are just bonuses. When I see people
buying box shrubs hand over fist, I have to restrain myself from telling
them to put them back, & get either a lepidote rhody that'll have the same
small-leaf shrubby impact PLUS lilac flowers in spring, or a vaccinium
which'll have berries the rest of the year. But then, I do also also like
"boring" hebes & for all intent & purploses bloomless box honeysuckle &
japanese holly despite that on the bloom scales & seasonal change scale
they don't rate much & rhodies vastly outmeasure them. And I'm terribly
fond of deciduous native shrubs which are perfect for breaking up what
might otherwise be a veritable hedge of large evergreen rhodies & small
evergreen azaleas.

Some people don't even recognize which of all these shrubs are rhodies. If
they think they stop at Ironclads & Kurume azaleas, then tiny-leaf dwarf
lepidotes catch their eye as something completely novel. Groundcover
rhodies that don't get more than four inches to a foot high, some so
densely leafed you can't see the structure (like "Yaku Fairy"), others
very loose & reaching with pompoms of leaves on long arms, as is the form
of many R. nakahare sunny rockery rhodies (& helping to extend the general
rhody bloom season to July).

I wouldn't personally want ALL rhodies & azaleas because without native
deciduous shrubs dispersed through my garden, it would not delight me
quite so much. But Azalea Way at the Arboretum suggests the
all-rhododendron-species approach isn't necessarily bad.

If a gardener avoids too many young "producty" rhodies that bloom May &
have no individual character to their structure, then there will never be
anything boring about a garden with lots of rhodies. They are apt to be
the most important focal points & "anchors" of a well laid out garden, in
or out of flower.

To some extent the prejudice that says "they only bloom a month, then
nothin'" has developed out of the fact that they are SO extravagant when
in bloom that by comparison people fail to see the obvious: that no other
group of shrubs is so varied & fascinating for the leaves alone.

In your climate zone, there should be scores of other shrubs and
other plants which could offer a more extended period of interest.
Ideally, a good designer should incorporate plants you prefer along with
others they may be aware of to provide a long season of color and year
round interest. Personally, if the plants are in good health and suitable
to the location, I tend not to suggest wholesale removal, but perhaps
relocation into a more attractive grouping incorporating additional new
plant material. It is expensive and often unnecessary to remove everything
and start over, unless you as the homeowner truly dislike the plants.

That struck me as good advice. I would be suspcious of a landscaper who
insisted in completely eradicating everything to start over.

I'd look for another designer who will work with you to incorporate the
plants you like and wish to keep into the design as well as offering
additional plant suggestions to add other seasonal interest. This process
should be a partnership - speak up!

The best advice yet.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/