Eight new rhododendron cultivars have been created in our nursery

One of the new cultivars, with the support of “Swedbank Latvija”, has been named ‘Dziesmusvētki’ in honor of the 150th anniversary of the Latvian Song and Dance Festival. It is a deciduous rhododendron cultivar with large, orange-red flowers and crinkled petal edges. Another deciduous rhododendron cultivar, ‘ErasmusPlus Latvija’, was created by order of the State Education Development Agency as a tribute to the Erasmus+ program and its implementers in Latvia. The European Union’s Erasmus+ program in the field of education, training and sports in Latvia is administered by the State Education Development Agency, while in the field of youth – by the Youth International Programs Agency. The cultivar is characterized by double, yellowish-pink flowers in dense hemispherical inflorescences. The cultivar ‘Peter’s Yellow’, created in collaboration with the University of Helsinki, is named in honor of the recently deceased author of the cultivar, Professor Peter Tigerstedt (1936–2022). It forms a vigorous shrub with large, dark green leaves and light yellow funnel-shaped flowers with gray-brown speckles on the upper petals. This is one of the rare evergreen rhododendron cultivars with yellow flowers, which has very good winter hardiness.

Several of the new cultivars are dedicated to different Latvian cities. The deciduous rhododendron cultivar ‘Brocēni’ has fragrant, double flowers in white with pink petal tips, arranged in dense hemispherical inflorescences. ‘Kandava’ is a richly flowering deciduous rhododendron cultivar with yellowish-pink flowers that have a pleasant scent. The deciduous rhododendron cultivar ‘Līgatne’ is characterized by orange-pink flowers with a yellow upper petal and curled petal edges. The relatively late-flowering elepidote rhododendron cultivar ‘Talsi’ has soft pink flowers with yellow-green spots on the upper petals. In turn, the name of Turaida is carried by the deciduous rhododendron cultivar ‘Turaidas Roze’, whose name was inspired by the ancient Latvian legend about the Rose of Turaida. This cultivar has small flowers in an unusual blood-red color with light stamens and wavy petal edges.