Three Seasons of Color

Plant breeder Robert “Buddy” Lee has been in the thick of azalea breeding since the 1970s. At a time when commercial nurseries in the south were growing only 10 or 15 varieties, Lee wanted to rock the boat and develop a more reliable reblooming azalea.

Instead of waiting on a vegetative sport, he did some controlled crossings. And like most breeders who have the patience of Job, Lee waited for “the one.” In the early 1980s, Lee saw Rhododendron oldhamii from Taiwan.

“This plant bloomed in spring and summer, and it was hardy to about 10°F,” he said. “I thought if I crossed it with cultivars which had the tendency to bloom in the fall, I’d have a good chance for a rebloomer.”

He eventually crossed R. oldhamii with some 42 named cultivars that had the tendency to bloom in the fall. Over time he evaluated about 40,000 blooming seedlings.

“I had big dreams but very little money,” he said. There were some promising plants from these crosses. Then Mother Nature had a different plan. In 1987, Lee’s nursery was hit with two devastating freezes, one in January and one in the fall.

“It wiped out so much of my nursery stock, I concentrated on other work to pay the bills,” he said. Lee is a registered nurse, but the pull of the horticulture world was too strong and he came back full time.

Lee returned to his seedling trials, where he fertilized and watered them, but he didn’t baby them.

“I may have covered some of them when it got close to single digits, but many of them thrived and came back in the spring, even without protection,” he said.

When the project became too large for Lee to handle, he began asking nurseries to partner with him. Lee contacted Flowerwood Nurseries, which agreed to work together to evaluate the new hybrid seedlings and bring them to market. More than 11,000 selected seedlings were moved to Flowerwood, which had to be whittled down to a manageable number. The partners narrowed it down to seven selections.

“Greg Smith and the nursery managers had a lot of confidence in the genetics, despite azalea sales being low at the time,” he said.

When the ink dried, a new plant brand was born. Encore Azaleas were introduced in 1995 in Atlanta. These new azaleas bloom in spring, summer and fall. And none of Lee’s varieties are crossed with southern Indica azaleas, he said.

“There’s a broad spectrum of genetics in the Encore line. That’s how we get all the different habits and cold hardiness,” Lee said.

Now the Encore line features 29 varieties, including four that were released this fall. And Lee is excited about a red cold-hardy variety due out sometime next year.