New life from old

Good day today - it got sunnier as the day went on. I planted one more shrub out on the steep bank - I know one shrub doesn't sound too impressive, but it is when you're hanging on by one hand and digging a hole with the other! I hope it thinks that it's back in the Himalayas!

This is a lovely form of Rhododendron arboreum from Arduaine. It was a beautiful old plant, growing in the Arboreum Walk, with amazing bicoloured flowers. One stormy night it blew over - completely ripped out of the ground. It hadn't been propagated so I collected a lot of cutting material and sent it off to the Duchy College at Rosewarne in Cornwall where they do micro-propagation. In due course - two or three years - we received a number of nice little plants back, which I potted on hoping to plant them out before too long. I brought one of them with me just in case something happened to the others!