Those in the wild up the mountains endure colder than my yards temps so I will assume they will be fine. We get 20's and 30's as usual winter temps with rare single digits, I have a place to keep them by the basement steps if it gets too cold for a few days I can bring the pot in. I have thought about the idea about getting a plant from the wild but have heard that I can get fined because it's our state flower, I don't know how true that is.I have gotten trees that way with good results when they are dormant.So more than likely the seed leaves are the 2 tiny ones I see. How long until they getat least quarter sized? I'm prepared for slow growth but can you guess at inches per year? I also would like to know if you dug up some soil from where the natural colonies are, I've heard they need that, or is compost good enough? Homemade not commercial compost. I will have to eventually get the book about them, the authors name should be easy to remember, Dick and Jane will stick in my memory.

BTW, this doesn't look like the bottom of a swale or something. Just plant the Kalmias slightly elevated...2-3 inches. That will reduce the likelihood of drainage issues. I'm assuming you are in the SE or East BTW. If you're in eastern Washington, zn 7...ok, that's going to require different advice. My scale of BLE difficulty, it goes something like: Hollies - Camellias - azaleas - tough elepidote rhodies - Kalmias - tough lepidotes - fussier elepidote - fussier lepidotes. So Kalmias are only a little harder to grow than standard rhododendrons, but probably more sun tolerant than many of them provided they don't get dry. Yes if you were trying to grew Rhododendron keiskei in zn 7 clay, you would be in trouble. You should be ok with the Kalmias as long as you don't under or over water them. Final BTW - again, you can't add ANYTHING to a HOLE to fix drainage. Period. End of discussion. Just don't work that way. (hey, I just invented a country music song title!) The only thing you can do is set the plant higher, and not have put any junk in the hole that will cause it to sink in a couple years. Yes, if you want to buy several bags of perma-til, and rent a rototiller and till an entire 10'X20' area...which btw should be higher than adjacent areas when done - you can do that. But, again it really isn't necessary if you do the right thing from the get go. Or you can spread some gypsum or even calcinic lime if the soil is extremely, extreme acid over _an entire area _, and it can marginally help drainage and tilth over that entire area. When you try to fix drainage for a _hole_ you just turn that hole into a bath! This post was edited by davidrt28 on Sun, Aug 31, 14 at 14:40

Thanks midwestdave. I see zero burn on shedding needles here. If Iseli was aware of the compatibility of understock to scion it could be possible they'd be writing a different article-description. DavidV - the same does hold true when it is grafted to anything "other" than Pinus contorta. Bob's emphasized it clearly. The reason he uses seedlings of CJ of course is because of the closest prodigy of seedling and scion, but also because, he has stock plants coning freely. He figured out something of rare proportions whether thru luck/skill - it doesn't matter. It's a wonderful discovery, he's made. Of course mugo - or var. pumilla (used a lot for grafting dwarf/mini conifers in Europe) - or anything of dwarf understock-growth should not be used for long-term compatibility because the scion will soon outgrow the slower understock - creating an imcompatible union that will "snap off", failing later....Speed of the understock needs to be compatible to that of the scion for you others out there that may not know this or understand how to select seedling-understock choices when grafting. var. latifolia should be used for hardiness purposes -(Pinus contorta var. latifolia)..... I'll assume. One more tip - never graft Abies concolor to Abies fraseri. You'll be looking at 100% dead plants in about 10 years. Glad I could be of help. Dax

Hi Edwin. Yes I think I will do that ,but in any case,when I see one of your plants or others and I write here on the forum that I'd like to have one,you can take that as an order and put a label "sold" on it .So far I count six ! In fact,the only time when I get a chance to see a decent conifer display is at the Paris plant show,twice a year .There are the Laurains sisters, Ward Alpines (who carry a fair selection of conifers from Lime Cross Nursery in Britain, and also Vallonchene. I have also obtained some fine plants from Clement in Belgium by mail. Talking of wich (and in order not to deviate too far from the original post) I was wondering what the understock was on Clement's 'Chief Joseph'. What a shame to see a fair sized plant like that go down the drain! T.