|
What's blooming in Bath, Highland
BY CHARLES GARRATT • STAFF WRITER
 | | The hills are alive with the blooms of rosebay rhododendron. The large blossoms vary from pink to white. (Recorder photo by Charles Garratt) |
|
WARM SPRINGS - The thickets of rhododendron, cursed by hunters and others traveling through the forest, pay their dues in the first weeks of July with huge blossoms of pink and white flowers.
Almost any road or trail in the Highlands will pass through or next to rosebay rhododendron, Rhododendron maximum. More common and later blooming than catawba rhododendron, rosebay rhododendron is an evergreen shrub which often grows 15 to 20 feet tall.
Rhododendrons are popular landscape shrubs and both the wild variety and nursery cultivars do well in a home planting. Rhododendrons prefer moist, cool, acidic, well-drained, organic soil and prefer partial to full shade.
During periods of drought, rhododendron will wilt, making it a good indicator species of low soil moisture. Some people believe rhododendron has been able to expand its range out of creek beds due to fire suppression in forests.
In most of the Appalachian Mountains, rosebay rhododendron is known simply as laurel. All of the "laurel creeks" and "laurel forks" and places with laurel in the name refer to the impressive and often impenetrable thickets of rosebay rhododendron common in the mountains.
The crooked trunks of rhododendron are used to make walking sticks. The tough wood has also been used for small tool handles.
Rosebay rhododendron is probably one of the few, if not the only, mountain shrub to have a Web site dedicated to it: rosebay.org. The site is produced by the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Rhododendron Society, which has chapters in Virginia and West Virginia and active members in the Highlands.
| 
)