Azaleas, Unbound

I don't often blog about exotic plants, except perhaps to whine about exotic invasives, but this seems like a good time to share my love of big, fluffy, flashy, southern indica azaleas.

You don't see very many of these beauties around any more.  Oh, the plants are here, all right, but they've been pruned into a more "controlled", "acceptable" size and shape - they're now green meatballs...or meatloafs, to phrase it another way.

I don't like green meatballs, even if the meatballs have a smattering of color in them during the springtime.

Give me the big, old-fashioned puffballs, vibrant with color, rich with romance, shaded by statuesque live oaks, dripping with Spanish moss.....

Now that's a southern landscape!