Rhododendrons

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Rhododendrons

Postby alison on Tue May 27, 2008 8:32 am

At the moment Rhododendrons are at their peak. We have a couple in the garden. One is an early April flowering red one which has beautiful deep red flowers and the other is a May flowering light pink one. The red one is in a large pot and I only bought it a couple of years ago, but the pink one is in the back garden and has been there for many years now. It was looking decidedly under the weather with pale green leaves instead of the deeper green and a lot of TLC was needed in the way of feeding. I was therefore really happy to see it bloom really well. There are lots of blooms and the leaves are getting a little bit deeper now. :D
I go every weekday morning with my friend on a brisk walk through Temple Newsam Park. We start out at her home and walk through the woods that lead into the grounds of Temple Newsam House coming out near the Rose garden and walled vegetable garden. We then walk toward the lake and over the bridge to bring us on to the side of the rest of the estate. As we walk away from the lake there is the pathway that leads us up through a splendid display of Rhododendrons. It is often referred to as the Rhododendron walk and they are fabulous at the moment. We have been discussing them every day watching for them to bud and then right through the winter to keep those buds and then as they started to open a little bit and you could get a glimpse of the colour that was going to come we were quite excited. Then both of us were ill. Sheila with a severe cold and myself with a bad asthma attack and a chest infection that we were afraid we would miss seeing them at their best. Luckily for us we had both got over our ails and were back walking last week just as they came into their peak. Glorious.
On Saturday I took the grandchildren up with me and we were looking at the size of the bunches which were much bigger than dinner plates. :shock: They were absolutely amazing and it brings such joy to see them. Hopefully I will be able to get some nice pictures to show you and add them to this thread.
A little bit of information about the grounds of Temple Newsam was that they were remodelled by Capability Brown in 1762 which took eight years to finish. This cost the family £2000 and in 1770 that must have been a lot of money. Can you imagine how much that would be today, They must have been so rich.I always find it hard to imagine having so much money that you could pay for such an impressive house (small stately home) and grounds. I try to imagine what it would have been like to live there in it's heyday. It is a beautiful place and luckily for me it is right on my doorstep only about 5 minutes away in the car.
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alison
 
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