QBARS - v15n1 Top Grafting Rhododendron Species
Top Grafting Rhododendron Species
Ben Lancaster, Camas, Washington
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Fig. 7. Top grafted two year old R. sinogrande
in bloom. Lancaster photo |
The photo (Fig. 7) shows a second year top graft on R. ponticum stock, single stem standard twenty inches high. This head had five separate buds all later expanded with twenty or more florets tightly packed in a truss. The bloom lasted over a period of sixty days in the early spring. The flowers were pale yellow with a redt. I had bought a small plant a year before from H. L. Larsen, and two years later by top grafting I had this heavy set of buds. The plant was R. sinogrande that takes so very long to bloom and I thought it interesting to relate to members that this time can be speeded up considerably especially if one wants to do some hybridizing, but does not want to wait from ten to twenty years to see the first bloom.
