Glenn Dale Azaleas
History of Glenn Dale Azaleas
Ben Morrison, the first director of The National Arborteum, began a project which lasted from 1920-1953, to develop a broad range of evergreen azaleas which were hardy in the Washington area. He did the bulk of his hybridizing at the Plant Introduction Center, here in Glenn Dale. Over four hundred and fifty cultivars were introduced and sent to nurseries and gardens throughout the country. Glenn Dale Azaleas are featured in the National Arboretum and are planted around the United States Capitol.
Boxlee [Azalea Farm] was one of 10 Nationwide Nurseries selected to reintroduce name-true Glenn Dale Azaleas as part of the "10 Oaks Project" in conjunction with the American Azalea Society. The Glenn Dale Azalea is the Prince George's County Shrub.
Boxlee is home to two Historic Sites in Prince George's County and sits on 10 acres.
[From a brochure: "Planting and Care of Azaleas", published by The Boxlee Azalea Farm, 6106 Hillmeade Road, Glenn Dale, Maryland.]
The history of the Glenn Dale Azaleas is of some interest to us here at The Bearcastle*, since — although our postal address is Bowie, MD — we actually live in the unincorporated area of Pince George's Country called Glenn Dale, birthplace of these azaleas. The Plant Introduction Center where they were hybridized is long gone now, but its site is only a few miles from us, and the Boxlee Azalea Farm mentioned above is just on the next major street over from ours, a rather unexpected resident in the midst of all the housing developments that surround us.
For our part, we also have some Glenn Dale azaleas that we acquired a couple of years ago from Boxlee; four have survived so far. Glenn Dales are often recognizable because their flowers tend towards more pastel shades than other azaleas. Also, the flowers often are larger than others, and frequently show a characteristic pattern of dark dots in the troat. Many varieties have "hose-in-hose" blooms (i.e., a flower with two trumpets, one in the throat of the other).
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*I don't know that I've ever explained why this blog, and our domain, is named "Bearcastle". Almost tautologically, the simple reason is that when we built our current house in 1997, after great deliberation we chose to name it "Björnslottet", which translates from the Swedish as "The Bear Castle". (N.B. The definite article "the" is part of the one-word name.)
Why that name? I'm afraid the answer is not very deep: our previous house Isaac had taken to calling "The Bear House" and, sometimes, "Björnhusset", the same in Swedish. So, when we were looking for a new name, that was our starting point. Why Swedish? No terribly good reason beyond choosing it to honor some very good friends of ours who live in Sweden.