Leafless rhodora makes its return to Eastport

The Rhodora

On being asked, whence is the flower.

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,

I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,

Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,

To please the desert and the sluggish brook.

The purple petals fallen in the pool

Made the black water with their beauty gay;

Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,

And court the flower that cheapens his array.

Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why

This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,

Tell them, dear, that, if eyes were made for seeing,

Then beauty is its own excuse for Being;

Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!

I never thought to ask; I never knew;

But in my simple ignorance suppose

The self-same power that brought me there, brought you.

– RALPH WALDO EMERSON

The rhodora flowered last week here in Eastport. Across the street from the high school, behind the elementary school where granite rises a hundred feet and you can sit on lichen-crusted rock to watch the kids play baseball, bees danced among the wild blueberries at my feet while colonies of leafless rhodora bloomed purple in the swales.

I turned my back on baseball to study the landscape. In the distance, ships sailed on Cobscook Bay and farther out, on the horizon, I could see the church steeple in Lubec. At my feet, blueberries and common juniper formed a carpet over thin acid soil, leaving patches of bare rock to lichens, the cracks in the rocks to moss and grass. Pockets of deeper soil on the high ground were claimed by trees whose size belied their age, spruce and service berry, an occasional white birch, adding an inch a year. But in the low areas, the swales between the rising granite where soil was deeper, grew mountain ash, wild raisin, speckled alders, and colonies of the rhodora.

Rhodora (Rhododendron canadense) is Maine’s native rhododendron, a plant for all seasons. It is deciduous, flowering in late May or early June on leafless stems, the purple flowers often sharing space with last year’s orange-brown woody seed pods. After the flowers fade, I enjoy the blue green foliage of rhodora through the summer, particularly as the new rosy-tipped seed pods develop among the leaves. On winter woodland walks, I look for the persistent seed pods at the branch tips, want to find them dusted with new snow.

Rhodora forms dense colonies of 4-feet-tall shrubs in lowland woods, often in seasonally flooded soils. In the swales between granite outcrops, where moisture is more limited, it grows to half that height.

I wish that I could say that rhodora is widely available, that you can find them at your local nursery. Sadly, it will take some effort. I called around, asking garden centers and nurseries in the Bangor area if they had this plant. Most do not, most do not even know the plant, have to look it up. But I do have a few leads and will be happy to share them with anyone who is interested – just send me an email at the address below.

I do not wish to be mistaken – I am not advocating the use of rhodora the way we use other rhododendrons, as foundation plantings or specimens in the landscape. I am suggesting that it belongs in the wild garden, along the woodland path, or pond-side. Or, if you are fortunate enough to garden among granite outcrops, plant it in the swales, the pockets of deeper soil.

Send queries to Gardening Questions, P.O. Box 418, Ellsworth 04605, or to reesermanley@ptc-me.net. Include name, address and telephone number.