The snow has finally melted off the rhododendrons that are to the side of my front door under my dining room windows. I have replaced each one of them once and one of them twice. They are sheltered by a stone wall with a limestone ledge in front of them, so they are protected. My husband wants to put a concrete porch there and pull out the rhododendrons and the ferns and hostas which grow beneath. Each time he would mention this I would protest that a porch would be too small and the beautiful flowers in the spring were worth another try.
I turned off the sprinkler system beneath this area, fed them religiously with an acid fertilizer and kept the watering to a minimum. They have a shallow root system, and do not like to be wet. They look better than any other winter, of course it is January! Their little leaves are not shriveled from the cold, and I am certainly going to keep hoping they survive or I am afraid the "cement boot" will win!
