A Beautiful Addiction And The Master Gardener.

I have to admit, whenever I see a rhododendron in a nursery, I beeline toward it.  I could pass hundreds of native treasures priced at less than a dollar and it would not matter, I would still toss over tables and knock down people to get to the rhododendron.  Of course, I do have standards even then.  It needs to be some sort of cultivar originating from a native species, preferably a Catawbiense cultivar.  Yes, the Asian stuff is gorgeous, but nothing beats a Catawba.  For me the attraction is probably both due to the fact that it is native, or at least continental, or even just a descendant of such a thing, and that it is broadleaved and evergreen in an otherwise halfway between the tropics and tundra deciduous Michigan. 

I started to green my winter landscape a little bit this year by introducing two Catawba cultivars and got excited beyond all measure when I backed them up with some rock and imagined myself on top of some Appalachian bald.  Of course, nothing beats an original, and this summer, finding that I needed some time to rejuvenate mind and body, well, I just had to make my way down to those balds and finally see Rhododendron Catawbiense with my own eyes.  I waited for a teacher friend to get off school to take a trip with me; he wanted to see mountains, and I wanted to see what grew on them.  I knew it might be hit or miss heading down to the southern Appalachians so late in June, and research indicated that such a time would be prime viewing atop the Roan Highlands.  Driving south from Roan Mountain, Tennessee, into the Unaka mountains, we climbed higher and higher and started seeing the odd Catawba clinging to life off of some rocks.  Here and there some Red Spruce (Picea Rubens) crept up and I felt like I was coming home; Reds grow up in the Ontarian Laurentians after all. 

We turned a corner and came across a bald full of them, right on the Appalachian trail, and the excitement went through the roof.  That is a post for another day, but I will set the scene just for this amazing picture (or two).  We traveled through the heath balds and cold spruce-fir forests, one foot in Tennessee and the other in North Carolina.  We came upon the legendary gardens on Roan Summit, with the plants so tall and full they might as well have been called trees.  Down tunnels of conifers we spied more bright purple-pink flowers waiting around every corner, and the place was probably the second most beautiful and sacred work of the Creator that I have seen anywhere.  Then one last trail beckoned even as the sun began to set and the "gardens" took on a celestial beauty beyond compare.  At the end of the trail was a boardwalk, which I figured would end in yet another amazing vista.  What I found instead...

Is beyond words.  Overlooking the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina was an expanse of them so thick and... well let's just say it was beautiful, peaceful, serene, etc.  There are many other balds of this sort just covered in our friends, but nothing prepared me for this spot.  There are places in this world that I personally believe are little remnants of Eden, and this is one such place where I have felt closer to the divine than anywhere outside of a place of constructed worship.  I make note of this reaction of mysticism because I encourage people to make a trip here to Roan sometime if they are able, to see what it does to them.  Non-spiritually, this is one of the places that most botanists past and present have come as sort of a botanical pilgrimage.  I know I want to make return visits myself, and see it in various degrees of daylight, maybe even during the winter. 

I know I promise quite a lot on this blog, and time and space usually conspire to keep me away from it, but a weekend of gardening and farming and contemplating things leaf and Maker of leaf have given me the inspiration to make this week on American Voyages the week of the Rhododendron.  Tomorrow we will visit Roan in more detail and give it the attention it deserves.