My dear Woodnative. May I suggest the following lepidote: epoch x augustinii which is the "bluest" that I've seen. This cultivar can be found in NJ at RareFindsNursery. It's an Augie Kehr development that he gave to Hank Schannen a few years back and which remains unnamed. I saw it last May (it blooms at the end of April) and is hardy in Zone 6 and I have to tell you: It's stunning. I had other plants in my radar at the time. But I am purchasing it this spring. I have some nice blue lavenders: Faisa, Lavendula, among others, this augustinii will stop you in dead in your tracks. While there's a pic of it on his website, I find that pics of Rhodies on the net (i.e. a nursery website) rarely if ever gives one an accurate mind's eye view of the plant. Consider it.

figtreeundrgrnd, I live in Morris County and I will probably have a couple of extras of some types. I only grew one to four plants of any type. I've already promised some to family and neighbors but usually when it comes down to it, you never know if they will take them. (And if they do, they will probably kill them). I hope to go through it over the weekend. LMK if you are interested and I will include you in my sorting. I should warn you that I have a lot of aphids in my yard right now and though my tomatoes aren't infested, I've found a couple here and there that I've hand picked off, so if you are aphid free (is there such a thing?), you might want to consider that. They aren't all over the place. They prefer my viburnums and roses I think.

I'm in Metuchen and commute to Hunterdon County, and have noticed them, too! My favorite is along Rt. 78, between 287 and Lebanon. They have beautiful purple and white wildflowers, that kind of look like poppies, growing all along the median. They haven't started blooming yet, but it's nice to see them!

You can also check with your township. Mine (also Central Jersey) gives it for free, but charges for delivery. You had to take either 3 or 6 cubic yards, if I remember correctly, in order to have it delivered. The delivery charges were very reasonable, $20 or $30. If you could handle it yourself, you can load it into your vehicle. The downside of my town's free mulch is that it was not shredded as well as if it was purchased from a garden supplier. You also don't know what is in it; I have heard there could be small bones from animals they have removed from the road, and I imagine their could be unwelcome bugs, although I have never seen termites in the times I have had it delivered. I once saw a private tree cutting crew removing an unwanted tree from a neighbor's yard. I asked what they did with the chips they were making from feeding the tree and branches into their machine. It was the end of the day, and they didn't want to haul the full truckload back to their yard, and so dumped the entire load in my driveway at my request. It was a lot of mulch and took over a year to use it all. I don't know how you can be sure that they were taking down trees the owners were no longer interested in, as opposed to diseased ones. I never had a problem, but potentially you could have one.