Eye Candy is the theme of Blooming Friday over on Katarina’s Blog this week, so how fortunate am I to have become the very proud owner of an apricot coloured Vireya Rhododendron, just in time to take part and be able to show off my new blooms? So here are my fabulous new flowers about which I am immensely excited – For the first time, I present to you …
My newly acquired, rare, apricot coloured Vireya Rhododendron
My very special, pink coloured Vireya Rhododendron
I got these two beautiful plants for my shade garden from the award-winning horticulturist and specialist plant grower Jim Holmes (whom you might remember I met at the Rare Plant Fair two weeks ago). Jim specialises in unusual and rare plants and has a collection of plants that simply amazes! I’ll have to save up now if I want anymore plants from him – they are not cheap.
Clivias, for example, take three to four years to flower. They cannot be propagated from tissue so all Clivias need to be hand pollinated when breeding your own. So when a specialist grower pollinates to produce an unusual colour (eg. the near whites and yellow Clivia’s Jim is well known for), they have to produce up to 100 plants of which very few will be the rare colour types – and it takes 3-4 years before they know which of the 100 plants they have grown will have produced a rare colour as it takes that long for them to flower for the first time. (I hope I’ve explained this correctly – I have written it the way I understood it). It was very interesting learning about this today.
I would love to have one of those dark yellow ‘Butterball’ or near white ‘Snowball’ Clivias one day. See Jim’s website for his Clivias here: http://www.capeseedandbulb.com/. Jim does export Clivia seeds – he arranges the required paperwork so you can order seed from him if you are interested in growing your own rare coloured Clivias from seed. Me, I’m an “instant gratification” kinda girl – no waiting four years for a plant to flower – I’ll save up and buy a flowering Clivia from Jim one of these days…
If you are interested in Vireya Rhododendrons see the website at http://www.vireya.net and while you are surfing around, stop over to admire more eye-candilicious blooms at “Blooming Friday – Eye Candy“!
Happy Gardening
xxx
12 replies on “Eye-Candy provided by Vireya Rhododendrons”
Wow wow! These are so stunning. And the colours! Perfect for your garden. Going to be the best show on the Blooming Friday!!! 🙂
Hmm, the colours – my garden is all pinks, purples and white with a bit of blue. I only realised after planting it amongst the bright pink azaleas that its not really in my colour scheme – but its so beautiful, so who cares? I should have planted it in and amongst the Clivias though, that would’ve worked. Oh well …
Both are so beautiful! I have one rhododendron in my woodland garden. I planted it in late winter and am waiting to see if it will survive and will it bloom. No chance for a rare color; just a common pink, but I have never had a rhodie survive my summer, although its cousin azalea grows well here. Hopefully, I have sited this one for success. Good luck with yours!
Hi Debs – I know how you feel! I planted the peach coloured one on Saturday – right now the flowers are falling off and I am hoping, hoping that it will settle happily and flower again. I hope the move to my garden hasn’t affected it negatively. We shall see if our Rhodos survice …
Wow, I’ve never seen such a beautiful color on a rhododendron! I wish our rhododendrons here in the U.S. looked like that. I’m sure they will thrive in your garden!
They are very special! I love them, I’m just hoping that i can keep them looking like this 🙂
Such beautiful blooms with vibrant colours!
You are right! These are definitely eye candies.
Those are so pretty! Finally, we have purple and white iris popping up and our grapes are taking off. I cannot wait!
I hope you are going to show us photos of your Irises! They are my favourite flowers …
Very pretty! I see why you’re so proud to show them off!
Hi Holly, thank you! I’m immensely happy with them. I just hope I can keep them flowering and thriving like this. They are quite big plants already so I hope they like living in my garden.