This week, the azaleas bloomed. The Georgia Piedmont is a riot of color. The local folks love their gardens, and I’m mystified by the many cultivated varieties. They are all beautiful, but I suspect these plants will soon escape the garden and end up in the forest.
The stands of native azaleas have not started to bloom.
The blossoms of the garden azaleas came about 10 days after the wisteria started blooming.
I’ve seen stands of jetbead, Rhodotypos scandens, at Stone Mountain, Deepdene and Yellow River. It’s a 3- to 6-foot shrub in the rose family, with white flowers with four petals against ovate serrate leaves. The Missouri Botanical Garden says the leaves are medium green, but they look dark to me.
The shrubs are lovely, but they’re invasive. They came from Southeast Asia to the United States in 1866. They started as a garden plant and are now all over the forest.
The common name jetbead comes from the fruit. If you went looking for a plant bearing jet-black marbles, you’d find this plant in autumn. The fruit is poisonous.
On another walk through the woods, I came across Vinca major, greater periwinkle or blue periwinkle. It’s also beautiful, also invasive. Another garden plant that escaped.
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