It's rhododendron time

click photo to enlarge
It's the end of May and the rhododendrons at Woodhall Spa in Lincolnshire are beginning to display at their best, their large, opulent, very un-English blooms drawing admiring glances from all who pass by. I admire them too. But, having lived in North West England, and having experienced the rhododendron-choked woods of the Forest of Bowland, I also admire the way that the rhododendrons in this Lincolnshire location are periodically controlled, cut back and cleared from areas.

I was reading recently that the horizontal growth and spread of a single rhododendron ponticum can cover 100 square metres. The Victorian landowners, who planted them as cover for their game-birds and as exotic and beautiful additions to their woods and country house grounds, didn't realise the environmental headache they were bequeathing to future generations. These rapidly growing plants quickly spread, denying native plants their space. They have few natural enemies - insects don't like them and rarely damage them, birds are scarce around them for lack of insects, and mammals don't eat their leathery, poisonous leaves. The few rogue sheep or cattle that do usually become sick and often die. In an area of lowland heath such as Woodhall Spa they are particularly problematic because silver birch, a short-lived tree, is common. Consequently when such a tree dies its space is quickly taken and new trees cannot grow up through the rhododendrons due to the lack of light at low levels. If the shrub didn't have such eye-catching flowers rhododendrons would surely have been cleared from woods years ago.

I searched long and hard for this specimen for my photograph. I was looking for a flower in the dark recess of a bush with strong contrast between the light, bright bloom and the darker leaves and shadows. I also wanted a flower with a fairly regular, radiating "ruff" (as I call the ring of leaves). A slight, dark vignette has been added to my shot to emphasise the natural contrast.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 96mm (192mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.9
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO:500
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Rhododendrons, the beautiful invaders

click photo to enlarge
The rhododendron (Rhododendron ponticum) was introduced to the British Isles some time around the year 1763. It was valued as an attractive, evergreen shrub that in May and June produced multiple, large and showy flowers. Its popularity grew and in the nineteenth century it became a staple of large gardens, parks and hunting estates (where it provided shelter for game species) on the wetter, western side of Britain where the soils were acidic. As well as this particular species being widely planted it was also used as a rootstock for hardy, cultivated varieties. With this high level of interest the rhododendron quickly became established and started to spread. By the twentieth century it became recognised for what it was; a rapidly invasive coloniser, filling woodland floors beneath the tree canopy, spreading into moorland and heathland, a plant that suppressed and replaced native species and made forestry much more difficult and expensive. Today the Forestry Commission has programmes of control designed to subdue the rhododendron and remove it from areas where it is not wanted.

One can understand the enthusiasm with which Victorian gardeners adopted the plant. It is like no other evergreen shrub when it is in flower. Not only are the individual blooms very big, they are numerous and quite beautiful. When seen en masse on a large group of bushes the sight is quite overpowering. As a child I enjoyed seeing the purple flowers on the millstone grit rock outcrops and in the woods near Settle in the Yorkshire Dales. In later life I sought out the varieties that Victorian landowners had planted around Bleasdale and Abbeystead in Lancashire's Forest of Bowland: various shades of purple, red, yellow, orange and white could be found. Today I make a point of visiting Woodhall Spa to see the annual show of multicoloured exuberance. Were I a forester, of course, any pleasure I got from the beauty of the flowers would be seriously tempered by the cost and work involved in controlling their spread.

Today's main photograph was taken in the Yorkshire Dales. The shot shows something of the glow that each flower exhibits when seen against the dark green, shiny leaves. The smaller photograph was taken the other day in the grounds of the Petwood Hotel in Woodhall Spa. These rhododendrons, a pink cultivar probably closely related to the ponticum variety, were planted in the early 1900s - about a century ago - and today, in places, form veritable "cliffs" of blooms 25 to 30 feet high.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 250mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The rhododendron tunnel

click photo to enlarge
As a child I used to love the rhodies (as we called the rhododendrons) that grew wild in certain spots on Yorkshire's Craven uplands. Their purple blossom that filled the woods in May simply outshone all the other flowers. Not only was there more of it, but the individual blooms, to an impressionable boy, were just so large. At any time of year they provided dense thickets that were great for dens and hide and seek, and the glossy evergreen leaves even provided pretty good shelter from the rain when you were caught without a coat - as boys often are!

I knew that the bushes grew only on the millstone grit side of the Craven Fault, but at that time didn't appreciate that the soil's acidity there was best for the plants, unlike that on the limestone side. Nor did I know that they weren't native to Britain, but had been in introduced by Conrad Loddiges in the 1760s, and that many cuttings were acquired in the Himalayan foothills. And I certainly didn't know that the luxuriant undergrowth of Rhododendron ponticum that I enjoyed so much was viewed by foresters and naturalists as an invasive weed, and that attempts were being made to control its rapid spread.

When I lived in Lancashire I came across it on the acidic soils of the Forest of Bowland. On more than one occasion its impenetrable mass blocked my way as I walked through woods. On the November day of the photograph above we came across a lot of it, still full of green leaf (and the odd rogue flower bud) where other trees and bushes were bare or brown. This tunnel, near the village of Scorton is mainly composed of arching rhododendron. I asked my wife to walk ahead so I could frame her with the branches and also silhouette her against the light of the lane beyond.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 68mm (136mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/80
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On