Hi sara. I am that member. I have family in Virginia Beach so I'm very familiar with the area. Rhododendrons seem to be sold by nurseries from roughly your area, up to Maine on the US east coast. But what buyers should ask themselves (before buying any permanent planting material in a nursery) is: do I see these in local gardens? The fact is you just don't in SE Virginia. Imagine a line from DC down to a little west of Charlotte, NC. South and east of that line you just aren't going to encounter many traditional elepidote rhododendrons like the ones you listed. There might be a smattering them in collector's gardens and arboreta. For example I was at the Raulston Arboretum in Raleigh this spring. In spite of a zeal to collect many, many rare and common Asian BLEs (broadleaved evergreens) there were only a couple mature Rhododendrons of commerce (i.e., not Azaleas) in their lathe house. They looked healthy - at least one of them was a Taiwanese species, R. formosanum IIRC. OTOH, there are neighborhoods in the Main Line suburbs of Philadelphia where every 3rd house will have a large 10' Ironclad or Dexter rhodie! The better Taiwanese species to impart root rot resistance is R. hyperythrum. The Southern Living 'Southgates' are patented versions of hybrids between various Ironclads and that species. This is based on pioneering work of John Thornton in Louisiana. Here is his original article discussing his work: https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JARS/v44n2/v44n2-thornton.htm Amazingly he was still alive and sending seedlings to Rarefind as recently as about 10 years ago, but I think his work is now being carried on by others. (In the interest of fairness I want to mention that a woman named Sandra McDonald was trying to create similar hybrids in Norfolk, VA, but I don't think any of them ever made it to market. Thornton might have just had a head start. She is somewhat better known for her azalea crosses.) So, basically, like Gardengal alluded to, if you want a rhodie to survive in SE Virginia, get either 'Charles Loomis', another one of the other older non-patented hyperythrum hybrids like 'Opal Thornton', or the newer, patented Southgates. You are more likely to find the latter. However it seems to me like maybe the Southgates haven't really taken off. It could just be that nurseries are too lazy to order what they should. Honestly I think from DC to anywhere south, nurseries have no business selling traditional varieties because they just aren't going to last. And remember, even the Southgates have to be planted on well-drained soil, with afternoon shade but some morning sun to help them bloom. Make sure to aggressively open up and splay the roots of a container grown plant to make sure you don't create the 'bathtub' effect by just plopping it in a hole. Fall planting would be better in your climate. And this whole thread is eerily timely because I'm sending a bunch of cuttings of 'Charles Loomis' to David Parks, owner of Camellia Forest near Raleigh, to root. So they should be for sale there in a few years. But call around, you can probably find at least one decent nursery in SE VA or eastern NC selling the Southgates. Good luck!

David, you seem to know a heck of a lot more about Rhododendron's then I do. [g] While I have wanted a Rhododendron for years and attempted to grow one once or twice, I've never studied them. They just seem to be everywhere I look in my area. It is probably the first shrub any builder or landscape company adds to a new home's foundation here. A number of my neighbor's seem to grow them effortlessly, so I just made a very minor effort to identify one I wanted and put it where I wanted it and not where it needed to be and that worked out poorly. And this time, I've done it again and made an impulsive decision, only because I was thinking of getting one, found myself at a nursery and they were having an end of season sale @ 50% off and it looked like it was in pretty good shape. Nice dark foliage and dense with some flower buds ready to go for next spring. So, $50. and I brought it home. In my area, we have a nursery that specializes in Rhododendron and has bred them for years. Weston Nurseries in Hopkinton, where the Boston Marathon starts every spring. I have been to that nursery numerous times and they have some really great looking Rhododendrons all growing in a wooded area among very tall evergreen trees in a lot of shade. I did ask the nursery where I bought it where to place it and they suggested more shade than sun, screened from winter winds and from winter sun. My neighbor across the street has had a Rhododendron up against the front of his house since I moved here 40+ years ago and it's huge and he doesn't prune it. It faces West with a tree between it and the sunshine and is along the foundation so it has solid shade in the morning. Here is a photo of it... And he does absolutely nothing to it. I have no idea which variety it is and I'm sure neither does he, but it is a common Rhododendron in this area. A lot of the plant material in this neighborhood must have been placed by the builder of the development and that was in the 1950s. So, looking at that, I have the idea that it should be pretty easy to grow a Rhododendtron here. Pretty sure that Rhododendron was there before the tree, which was a weed seedling that grew up in a hedge and they kept it and got rid of the hedge. [g] I'm trying to plant in an established yard with 40+ year old trees already in place. I am sure if I made it more of a priority and went to the nursery here that specializes in them and had a well thought out plan, I should be able to have some success. And I hope to do that when other priorities stop marching to the front of my to do list. [g] In the meantime, I already planted the Rhodie and doubt that it is in the right place, but I wanted to get it in the ground and I thought I'll have the winter to spend a little more time researching it and figuring out if it is in an okay spot or not and I can always move it in the spring. it definitely should have protection from winter winds with a Taxus to it's west and an Arborvitae to the south of it and only a little morning sun and shade a lot of the day. So at the worst, it won't get as much sun as it would like. I really appreciate your post, because I did have it in the back of my mind, that GardenGal does live where she might have an easier time growing some things than I do, but in this instance I wasn't sure if that was the case or not. And clearly there is enough difference between varieties to be more careful to select based on what your site offers. So, again, I benefited from reading your post, as well as everyone else's, so thanks. I can see I have not been careful enough about selection and siting.

So sorry you've had so much damage from the deer! I understand not making an effort to prevent animals from eating your shrubs. I've had to come to the same acceptance as far as rabbit damage goes. I think it makes sense to leave the Rhodies with the bare branches and trim the lower branches to look attractive and then plant something in front of them, that the deer won't eat. That shrub in your first photo is very attractive and healthy looking and great that the deer leave it alone. Whatever it is, I'd plant more of those. I imagine you can find a good nursery that might have field stock that is as large as you are looking for and they would ball and burlap it for you, but I can't imagine how expensive that would be.

Well, Floral, thank you! I sometimes do get around to taking that approach, but not usually my initial reaction. [g] I do grow organically, so my toolbox for addressing any kind of disease is limited. But I did take that approach with a rose that had a significant problem and I was actually reminded of that yesterday when I was looking at how healthy it looks this year. After about 4 years of limping along. What do you mean, 'the blemishes are on foliage which will drop soon anyway' ? I thought all the foliage on Rhododendron's was 4 season? I've been growing azaleas but not Rhodies.