Jerry Friedman wrote:
If anyone wants to know whether they'll go to a good home, my mother
lives in the suburbs of Cleveland and has a rather woodland-like yard,
with several trees and some rhododendrons.

That sounds reasonably suitable, but this is a difficult garden plant.
Site selection is very important.

I received one as a gift a few years ago and was stumped where to put
it. Nowhere on my property did I have a site suitable for it, if the
instructions that came with it were to be believed. I did the best I
could but the plant died anyway.

Most plants being sold in catalogs now are supposed to be a hybrid of
the North American native with a cultivated asian relative. So they
are not taken from the wild but on the other hand they may yet have a
negative impact on the endangered native.

Una