Rhododendrons: forget the flowers, check out the leaves

Gardeners love rhododendrons for the kaleidoscopic glare of their spring flowers, but their leaves are what captivates rare plant expert Robbie Blackhall-Miles

I am very lucky. I have one of the greatest and grandest gardens in the world right on my door step. The National Trust’s Bodnant Garden is just a short drive from where I live in Snowdonia, and right now the garden is getting ready to put on a performance like no other in the world.

Bodnant is famous for many things, but the one that stands out most for me is its amazing collection of rhododendrons. The flower buds of these superlative members of the Ericaceae are swelling and getting ready to burst into flower with technicolour abandon. Red through pink, orange and yellow to white, and with blue and purple to add, they are a show that must not be missed.

However, alongside the rhododendron flowers come the people, upwards of 180,000 of them per year, and I am afraid that I find this a little difficult to bear. I have taken to visiting Bodnant when I am sure of some peace and quiet; midweek, in the evening and during the winter have become the times I haunt these acres of Welsh hillside. It’s those winter visits that have become the most charming. To see Bodnant without its kaleidoscopic glare of colour is to see a very different garden indeed. I see the plants themselves and not the brazen show of the battle for pollination. My eyes are drawn out of the garden to the landscape that surrounds without the interference of rich pigment or hue, and the plants themselves are subtle and benign, not clashing or glaring.

Most of all, I see the rhododendrons’ most incredible leaves. Forgive the confession, but I have become a serial leaf turner. I walk around Bodnant’s 80 acres, inspecting leaf undersides, looking and trying to understand. I have reached a point in this almost obsessive, pursuit where the brash red flowers can be shouting “look at me” and all I want to see is the plant’s leaves.

I am looking at scales and hairs (or the lack thereof) in a bid to comprehend something that I am not sure I will ever fully grasp. With more than 1,000 different species, rhododendron taxonomy is rather difficult, but I am determined I will get it one day. Rhododendron leaves with scaly undersides are lepidote, and ones without are elepidote; characteristics, alongside a suite of others, that place them into their separate sub-genera and subsequently act as a guide to their species identification. Beyond that, they have a whole range of different indumentums (types of hairs) that distinguish them more accurately than their flowers.

This intricate array of different styles of hair serve many purposes for these plants; shedding water, absorbing water, frost protection and acting as minuscule windbreaks to control the loss of water through transpiration. Whatever the purpose of the indumentum, the effort put in by the plants to produce it is not in vain. Rhodos live their life in a constant battle to accumulate nutrients to build their evergreen leaves. In areas of the world that see hot, wet monsoons and cold, dry seasons, these simple adaptations can be the difference between winning and losing.

But, as a gardener, indumentums have taken me from being a mere rhodo appreciator to a rhodo fanatic. They give the plants something beyond the brief flowering period that takes place at some point between now and June, and spread the interest through the year. I will continue to visit Bodnant during the busy summer season, but I shall be doing so off-peak, seeing a very different view to the rest of the crowds. I will be looking a little deeper at the rhododendrons and seeing plants that are far more complex than their relatively simple, yet audacious, flowers lead you to believe.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEoKyaqpSerq96wqikaKSZm7KiusOsq7KklWS0or7DnqWippdir627xmhpaWlnZLOmro5ramiqmKSxsLDEp5urp56oeqe70aCcrWWknbJussuorp6qo2KwqbHCpGSoraRiwamxjKWcmq6VqA%3D%3D