No Roses? No Problem! Our Flower-Filled Walk Up La Salle

The original plan for our Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking on Wednesday walk this week was to make our annual Mother’s Day/Week visit to the Morcom Rose Garden. It would have been a week earlier than usual, but we didn’t want to miss the flowers’ full beauty. However, Joyce and Bill A visited the garden last weekend and didn’t think the roses were at their best. The buds needed some more time. That was no problem. We wanted to go see the new bridge over Bushy Dell Creek in Piedmont Park and we could go there instead.

However, a wonderful thing about spring flowers is that they come in waves with some blooming early and others later. Rhododendrons are one of the later flowers. They had just started to pop around Piedmont and some homes on the 100 block of La Salle Avenue have large, mature, beautiful rhododendrons that were worth a special trip to see. So, on third thought, we decided these rhododendrons would be our destination for this morning. The Morcom Rose Garden and the Bushy Dell Creek Bridge could wait.

There was a good turnout of 44 walkers and four K-9 best friends at the Exedra to enjoy this warm spring morning and some lovely flowers.

However, before our regular 10:30 AM start, walker and physical therapist Peggy S repeated the strategies to maintain stability and fall prevention thoughts that she shared the week before. This was for anyone who had missed it, or wanted a refresher, and there was excellent attendance for it.

We then headed out going up Highland Avenue knowing that there would be other rhododendrons and more wonderful flowers in front yards along the way to see. We were not disappointed. On Sheridan Avenue we had our first rhododendron sighting and there were also dogwoods with delicate white petals, horse chestnuts with fuchsia-colored buds, cherry trees and white blossoms, purple wisteria, and even red roses to enjoy.

We went up Wildwood Avenue and through the shaded Hall Fenway where its rhododendrons were still not in bloom. On Crocker Avenue we found more flowers and especially appreciated the petite, yellow Lady Banks roses that covered an iron front fence. We came to La Salle and went up it looking for our rhododendrons. There were other lovely flowers in the front yards, but towards the end of the block, just before Sea View Avenue, there were the spectacular white and pink rhododendrons in two front yards. Information from an online search about this type of plant was shared.

Rhododendron is a very large genus of about 1,024 species of woody plants. They are found most commonly in acidic and infertile growing conditions and can be either evergreen or deciduous. Most species are native to eastern Asia and the Himalayan region, but smaller numbers occur elsewhere in Asia, and in North America, Europe, and Australia. Their name comes from Ancient Greek with “rhodon” meaning “rose” and “dendron” meaning “tree.” Rhododendrons have no final size and can grow almost indefinitely. They range from dwarf, ground-hugging varieties, which may reach 16 inches, to giant tree-like specimens as tall as 20 feet or more.

Most species have brightly colored flowers which bloom from late winter through to early summer. It is the national flower of Nepal, the state flower of both Washington and West Virginia, the state flower of Nagaland, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, and Himachal Pradesh in India, and the provincial flower of Jeju in South Korea and Jiangxi in China. The smaller azalea makes up two subgenera of rhododendron. The large, white, and fuchsia-colored ones on La Salle made a beautiful background for the attached group photo.

The morning was still young, so we continued up La Salle, past Indian Road, and climbed up the rarely visited La Salle Court cul de sac. At the top of its hill is an almost 8,500 square foot, white mansion built in 1925 with a pool off to its right side. One walker said it looked like a “mini–Claremont Hotel.” It was another thing of beauty in a morning that had been full of it. It was now time for us to retrace our steps and make our return to the city center via La Salle, St. James Drive, and Hampton Road, enjoying more spring flowers along the way.