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Mountain Garden: 84-year-old retired surgeon has devoted years to creating rhododendron hybrids, lush plantings of high-country natives
Journal Photo by David Rolfe
Robert Means' garden includes a yellow "Lysimachia Japonica," Hens and Chicks, banded mountain laurel, rhododendron and spiky Hayworthian.
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Published: May 23, 2009
I've heard about Robert Means' rhododendrons for years.
So I was overjoyed to get an invitation to visit.
Means is an expert grower and hybridizer. Many of his named cultivars were flaunting their fine flowers during my visit. His wooded property was spangled with rhododendrons and azaleas, each brilliantly aflame with color.
When Means was a boy, he spent time in Valle Crucis in Watauga County. It was there that he discovered his passion for rhododendrons. Means has been collecting and hybridizing since the late 1960s. His garden exhibits all the markings of a fine plantsman -- with a jeweler's eye for flowers.
Years have buried both plant tags and memories. A few of these beauties are nameless. But there is the deep-cardinal red of Cavalier and the melon-colored Ambrosia. The brilliant pink spheres of Pincushion seemed to float in the forest.
His time-consuming passion for hybridizing has yielded several beautiful flowers that have been named for family members, including Oga Retta, a peach color with a dark blotch named for his mother. This was the first plant that he registered with the Royal Horticultural Society in London, which is the international registrar for the genus rhododendron. Whenever a new hybrid is developed, named and entered into the trade it must be registered.
"You have to measure the size of the truss, the number of florets, the length and the color of the leaves. You have to measure the color of the flower, including the color of the signal or blotch, against an international color chart," Means said.
Mary Jane, registered in 1989, was named for Means' late wife. Helen Vieira was registered in 1994 and named for his mother-in-law. Tina Louise, a white cross of Wheatley with yakushimanum, was named for Means' daughter.
Tina and her family, husband James Hughes and their two sons, Zachary and Garret, come just about every week to help Means with the garden's maintenance.
The woodland property is entered at the end of a road and expands over 10 acres, falling off to Muddy Creek after opening to pasture. The house is tucked neatly into the woods.
Means, 84, is unable to spend as much time in the garden. Means fell from a roof in 2002 when a ladder slipped. Since that time he has not been able to stand comfortably on uneven ground without risking losing his balance.
So we toured in his golf cart, traveling on narrow paths and corridors, rolling over moss-covered hummocks and dodging rhododendrons that have enthusiastically invaded the trail.
Means started his general surgery practice in 1955 and retired in 1990 at 65 to pursue his interest in horticulture. Although the rhododendrons and azaleas are prominent in the woodland garden, they are not the only plants of interest.
There are conifers of all sorts whose fine form and needled foliage contrasted with the broad leaves of the rhododendrons.
Ferns are another passion of Means'. His article on ferns as companion plants to rhododendrons appeared in the summer 2003 issue of the Journal of the American Rhododendron Society. Many of the ferns in Means' garden were propagated from spore that he collected and sowed under lights. The ferns were also in fine form during my visit, many having just completed or still in the process of unrolling their fronds from tight fiddleheads.
There are statuesque characters such as the Goldie's Giant Wood fern and the Cinnamon fern and diminutive gems such as the Hairy Lip fern.
In a courtyard at the house is a garden reminiscent of an alpine scene. There are three small pools connected by a tumbling stream that meanders its way through a wonderful collection of sedums, ferns and flowering plants as well as such choice rhododendrons as the species Rhododendron yakushimanum -- from the Yakushima Islands of Japan -- and dwarf conifers.
Giving the impression of a windswept mountaintop, the conifer cultivar known as Chamaecyparis obtusa nana lutea spread into an irregular golden-tinged cone.
Betula jackmontii, which has been described as among the best birch varieties with white bark for the South, stood at the center of the scene.
A chorus of frogs mingled with the babbling of the small stream. A tree frog clung to a stem under the shade of some ferns, trying to be inconspicuous. The white hooded flowers of Arisaema sikokianum, a Japanese jack-in-the-pulpit, were stunning among ferns at one end of the garden. The hooded cobra-like flowers were pure white with a large central spadix -- like the clapper in the interior of a bell.
The largest pool had water lilies and yellow iris protruding from the center pool. Everywhere mayapples opened their green umbrellas above hellebores and ferns, Solomon's seal and iris. The whole scene was beautifully framed by the wall-length kitchen window, a place to while away the hours watching nature unfold.
Means' success with rhododendrons can be attributed to careful attention and care in both breeding and culture. It takes about five years from the time the seed is sown until the first flowers will develop. Then it's many more before a plant can be evaluated for overall performance. After he makes the cross between two flowers, he removes all the pods but three. He collects the seed in the fall and sows it on the surface of pots of sterile soil and places them under lights. He uses a constant bottom heat for the seedlings. They germinate soon after sowing.
Means said that one of the secrets to rhododendron culture is to give them excellent drainage. He plants his shrubs on elevated mounds or just places the potted plant on the ground and mounds mulch around it.
"I was planting once," Means said, "when a friend of mine was present and he said ‘this is my kind of plant. I don't like digging holes.' People will say that they can't grow rhododendrons and this is the reason, they do not have good drainage and the roots just rot."
He said that rhododendrons and azaleas are mostly surface rooted; they do not have roots that penetrate deeply in the ground.
"They say it is not a good idea to plant them near dogwoods as they are also surface rooted and the two will compete."
Means does not fertilize his plants after they are established and planted. He will fertilize them with a liquid fertilizer when they are still potted plants. Means recommends Hollytone as a good fertilizer for rhododendrons and azaleas because "it is safe and you do not have to worry about burning the roots."
Means has specific goals that he has pursued in his hybridizing over the years.
"I have tried to get a good yellow, to impart heat tolerance and to have a compact plant that doesn't get leggy."
A friend, Delbert Brim, who specializes in rhododendrons and azaleas, recently produced a yellow flower. Means is very excited about this. Recently, he took the pollen to cross with some of his own.
"I am hoping to be around in five years to see it bloom," Means said.
■ If you have a gardening question or story idea, write to David Bare in care of Features, Winston-Salem Journal, P.O. Box 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27101-3159, or send e-mail to his attention to gardening@wsjournal.com.
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