Rhododendron ‘Karin Seleger’

Rhododendron ‘Karin Seleger’
RRLapponica x RRRhodoastra

Note : Il y a une clarification à faire deux taxons ayant le même nom.

The ‘Karin Seleger’ dwarf rhodie is hybridized from two species. The first is Rhododendron impeditum, a groundcover sometimes called Cloudland Rhododendron, having dense evergreen foliage & purple blooms in April & May. It was collected during an alpine trek in 1911 n Yunnan, China, by Scottish plant hunter George Forrest, who brought it to the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, & its cultivar history begins there.

It was crossed with R. dauricum, a native of the Altai Mountains in Russia east through frigid Siberia, Northern Manchuria & China. Being a subarctic plant, when grown in temperate regions it blooms before the end of winter. It has been in cultivation since 1780. It is deciduous, & even though an evergreen variety entered cultivation in 1817, ‘Karin Seleger’s’ pedigree is with the deciduous form, which has frequently been crossed with evergreen rhodies to develop cold-hardiness in shrubs that do not lose their leaves in winter.
These two dwarf rhododendrons were hybridized by famed alpine gardener Barrie Porteous of Muskoka, Canada. R. impeditum x dauricum preserves the best traits of the R. dauricum in that it begins blooming just before Spring in early to mid March, insuring that the rhododendrons’ flower season starts early. And it adds to these fine traits R. impeditum’s evergreen alpine hardiness.

The flower on this hybrid combination came out a flourescent violet purple, not large but thickly covering the shrub. It provides a startling mound of purple.