In article .com,
wrote:

I am looking for a dark purple azalea that I believe is an early
bloomer . I called a local gardening shop and they told me that the
dark purple is "Girard's Fuschia", but it looks more hot pink to me.
Does a dark purple azalea even exist? And if it does what is it
called?

Thank you in advance

'Gerard's Fuschia' certainly isn't purple, but 'Girard's Purple' is; the
Girards bloom in April. For an early bloomer that is to the blue end of
deep purple, look at 'Oceanlake' & see if that's closer to the color you
have in mind. A larger more upright azalea with luminescent purple blooms
is 'Mood Indigo,' not as common as 'Oceanlake' however so can be hard to
find. There are also many very dark purple rhododendrons including sturdy
ironclads like "Lee's Best Purple" & "Lee's Dark Purple," but I'm assuming
you're distinguishing between evergreen azaleas & large rhodies. There are
a great many small species-rhodies, however, that have the same garden
impact as Kurume or Girard azaleas, & 80% of them are one or another shade
of purple. You might want to look at Rhododendron yungningense for
example, mine's shown he
http://www.paghat.com/rhodyyungningense.html
& here's my mood-indigo & oceanlake respectively:
http://www.paghat.com/moodindigo.html
http://www.paghat.com/rhody_oceanlake.html
plus 'Karin Seliger' which blooms in March:
http://www.paghat.com/rhododendron_karinseleger.html

-paghat the ratgirl
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