Telpoea Truncata Redux

     You may recall, if you read my post on Telopea truncata, that I concluded that I wasn't sure that it was worth it to grow this shrub because it was an ungainly, ungraceful plant. I now take that back. While it is true that my plant meets that description, I was just at Dan Hinkley's garden and he showed me the Telopea truncata that I had given him a few years ago. The picture posted above is of that plant, and it looks like a nice full shrub that would really look dynamite with a bunch of red telopea blossoms all over it.  He has grown this for several years and has not pruned it, yet it is still nicely branched and compact. It has not bloomed yet, but I am sure it will eventually. It is not as old as the one in my garden. He also reports that it did not suffer in the cold we had in November of 2010 when so many things died from an early freeze where the temperatures got down below 10 degrees (Fahrenheit). Although my experience has been that Telopea truncata does not bloom particularly early in its career, the same can be said about many rhododendrons and I do not hear people knocking them for that reason. Therefore, I now would recommend Telopea truncata as a good plant for the Pacific Northwest, if you can find it. See my discussion in my previous post for how to do that. http://lindacochran.blogspot.com/2012/05/telopea-truncata.html