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In article , Janet Baraclough
wrote: The message from Stephen Henning contains these words: Janet Baraclough wrote: contains these words: Ericacious plants are not salt tolerant at all. Azaleas are in that group. Well, that just ain't so. Much of west Scotland is acid peaty soil, lashed by salty rain and salt-laden wind. Some of the commonest naturalised plants are ericaceous. Heather and rhododendron ponticum both thrive right down to the (salt)water edge here. Pieris, and deciduous and evergreen azaleas do very well, and it's common for very wind (and salt) swept gardens to have huge old deciduous azaleas as a windbreak on the sea side. West Scotland's salt-laden coast is famous for its rhododendron gardens . I spent most of the month of May visiting Scotland's famous rhododendron and azalea gardens and none grew rhododendrons nor azaleas near the open sea or near the beaches. Garbage. If you were ever here, you never looked at a map. The rhododendron and azalea gardens I visited we Royal Botanic Garden of Edinburgh (not near the sea) I suggest you look at the atlas. Edinburgh is a SEAPORT. Inverewe Gardens (NT) (on Loch Ewe, a sal****er estuary, but the rhododendrons and azaleas are either grown in walled gardens or on high ground. In their official brochure they describe the "curse of the salt spray") Lochewe is a seabay, a fjiord. Open to the Atlantic Ocean. Look at that atlas again. Few if any of the rhodos there are in the sun-facing walled garden which was built for herbaceous and vegetable gardening. Arduaine Gardens (NT), Inveraray (on a high slope overlooking the Sound of Jura.) Arduaine is at sea level on the west coast, NOT at Inveraray. Benmore Gardens (RBG), Benmore (a woodland setting not near the sea) Where do you GET this garbage?????? Benmore is in a woodland setting at Dunoon on the Holy Loch; where the US Navy used to keep its submarines. Crarae Gardens (NT), Inveraray (on the Crarae Burn (a fresh water creek) not near the sea) Crarae (I work there too) is right on Loch Fyne, another sea inlet/fjiord. The freshwater burn through the garden runs into the sea. Brodick Castle & Gardens, Isle of Arran (on an island on the Firth of Clyde, but it is situated high not near the sea) This is hilarious. I live on Arran in Brodick, I work in Brodick Castle Gardens.The castle is 100 ft above SEAlevel, and less than 100 m from the water. The rhododendrons and azaleas are between the castle and the sea. As I type I am looking across the SEA bay to Brodick Castle and its gardens which run right down to the SEAwater. Many of the most important rhodos in the garden grow (and self-seed) in the section called "Plant hunter's walk", which is right down at sea level maybe 10 m from the water. Not many Scots consider ponticum a garden plant. Haven't said they do. Rp is a naturalised and highly invasive weed throughout west Scotland, right down to the sea edge. (The gardens you list grow far more than ponticum of course.). Yellow azalea is also a naturalised weed in many west coastal areas, which is why I mentioned it. The Scots have done considerable research on the resistance of plants to the salt spray and to limestone. They have found plants which can tolerate these notorious enemies of rhododendrons and azaleas. The rhododendron gardens of the west coast of Scotland are all on acid soils, not limestone. Rhododendrons, because of their resistance to salt, are often used as wind-shelter belts in the coastal gardens you mention. Janet Isle of Arran, west coast of Scotland. It seems a bit tawdry for a decent soul like yourself to be telling Stephen you doubt he's been to Scotland when he certainly has been or wouldn't've said he had -- he's well enough known in the rhody community that if he started telling whoppers like you're presuming, a whole lot of people would know. He is a good reporter on rhododendrons; I'd turn to him in an instant for any rhody puzzle or problem I was having; his knowledge is worthy of respect. The effect of salt on 95% of rhody & azalea varieties is not rare information from some loon pretending to have been to Scotland as you seem to be imagining. Whereas, if what you have posited were true, then all unlikely things are likewise true & the moon really is made of cheese. What Stephen asserts is that none of these gardens grow rhodies or azaleas near the open sea or on beaches. That's not the same as claiming the sea can't be seen from anywhere from any high hilltop, which seems to be your gambit for denying the reality that the genus rhododendron is simply & factually extremely salt sensitive. I'll assume you're mistaking hilltops in view of the sea for saltmarshes or beeches, as I refuse to believe you'd lie outright. Stephen's quote from the Inverewe Garden brochure about their troubles with the "curse of the salt spray" still stands as Inverewe's own testimony on that topic. In fact the methods by which Inverewe gardens protect rhodies from salt air are famous & imitated by large scale landscapers. Stephen never said Inverewe was not near sal****er; he said correctly that the garden admits to having problems due to this location, & his statements are not rendered incorrect by you misrepresenting what he said. Unless you're speaking of R. pontus exclusively, these shrubs cannot be used as windbreaks against salt winds as you posit, indeed the opposite of what you describe was done by Osgood Mackenzie at Inverewe. He built walled terraces to protect against sea winds, & planted Pinus scandinavius specifically as windbreaks to protect the Inverewe rhododendron collection from salt winds. And you can't possibly believe Benmore Botanical Gardens' woodland rhodies are growing in a salt environment. Their rhody collection occurs mainly in two parts of the park by their own descriptions as far from sal****er as they could be placed -- one is imbedded in the center of the park maximumly protected from salt breezes. The other is on a hillside protected from wind by both the hill & a forest. So rather than telling Stephen to get out his atlas, perhaps you should get out your Benmore Gardens map & look where the rhody gardens really have been placed. Likewise the Royal Botanic Garden of Edinburgh doesn't grow rhodies by the sea, & you noting Edinburg itself is a seaport doesn't mean that from the highest hill to the most distant corner it is one big saltmarsh beloved by rhodies, & Stephen's statements still stand while yours seem odd. I could as easily point out that in my port town -- with naval ships big enough to not scare Bagdad -- is in the heart of one of the world's great rhododendron capitals therefore rhodies love salt. But the reality is our famed rhodies aren't grown on sound-front properties without major sheltering mechanisms, or they die immediately. If you study those gardens at Benmore & Inverewe & the RBG more closely I'm sure you'll make out how the rhodies are protected -- at Benmore in particuolar the landscaping is designed to protect them from salt winds. It's not always successful alas. It may be too subtle for you to have realized at first glance how it's arranged, but once it's pointed out it'll be obvious. I'm not quite sure why you're so insistant rhodies will grow in salt. Go dump a bag of salt around the roots of your rhodies & see how long they last! About the only rhodies that ever establish in nearly saltmarsh or beach conditions are R. pontus & R. macrophyllum & even they have their limitations. Among azaleas the Satsuki, Gumpo, & Indica varieties are moderately salt tolerant, not strongly so, but if you honest-to-crap see an azalea thriving in sea wind, assess the variety before deciding all or most such shrubs would therefore do fine in a radically inappropriate location. My county, on a penninsula with scores of sal****er inlets & an enormous sal****er canal along the full length of one side of the county & the sound along the entire other side, would probably look like familiar country to you, very much like around Argyle or similar places you'd know well. A lighthouse near us is surrounded by an abandoned rugosa plantation dating to when the hips were still basic grocery store produce -- impenetrable jungle of rugosas flat at beech level where every year they are well-salted by autumn & winter storms. Not one rhody survives there -- not even the famously salt-tolerant wild coast rhody because there is no high ground for them to get above the salt. We are surrounded by sal****er, yet the county is famous for its azaleas. The rich folks who live right on the beaches, howevre, have to grow rugosa roses & suchlike, forgoing our famous rhodies. Nearby Seabeck Park right on the salt Canal is famous for its wild rhodies -- it'd probably look like Scotland to you & you'd probably be thinking all those rhodies are growing in the salt air. But once you leave the hilltop & get down to sea level, the rhodies disappear. They vastly prefer woodland edges with a forest between them & the beaches so they are packed one beside the other on the roadsides but not at the edges of the beech -- despite that they'd have a better chance of making it than just about any other species or cultivar. -paggers -- Get your Paghat the Ratgirl T-Shirt he http://www.paghat.com/giftshop.html "In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot." -Thomas Jefferson |
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