Rhododendron Dreaming . . .

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It was over at Clytie's Random Nature page that I saw this weekend some lush and lovely rhododendron blooms apparently near an abandoned church. (Would like to see some shots of the abandoned church too; hint, hint . . . :-) ) And that reminded me that this time of year there is also a place near here where rhododendrons bloom in abundance, if one is lucky enough to know about it and determined enough to get there.
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Back in the 1800's there was a large chateau between Chantilly and Creil, to the north of Paris, which belonged to the Rothschild family. As with most chateaux worth their name, there were acres and acres of land around it. I'm not familiar with all the history, but the chateau was sold and has become a technical school, a large part of the grounds nearest the chateau has become a huge shopping center with multiple car dealers and a variety of large stores. But a stretch of woods remains still undevelopped today, which belonged to the chateau grounds long ago. And on that piece of land an enterprising gardener had planted a grand plot of rhododendrons around a small pond he'd created, the rhododendrons covered an entire hillside. Although totally abandoned for probably at least 75 years, the rhododendron garden is still there, and still blooms every Spring around this time.
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One just has to be willing to travel a ways to get to it. On past excursions I've bicycled there, but today we walked, round trip it was a three hour hike through the woods like this . . .
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But finally one is rewarded for one's efforts with the first towering shrubs, which as you can estimate from the scale of the people here, are perhaps 18 to 20 feet high . . .

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I can remember when I was little my parents would sometimes take us to go see rhododendrons blooming in the woods of the Swarthmore College campus in Pennsylvania. I didn't appreciate them at the time, woods were places for playing out make believe adventure stories, not for looking at boring flowers . . . What an ignorant little sod I was. It took many long years before I started to see the light, but now I'm a believer. A believer in beauty, natural beauty . . . I think the word my father used often was "Glorious", with an exclamation point.

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And speaking of fathers, I would like to draw your attention, if you can read French, to a particularly, stunningly even, beautiful tribute to his father which Jeff just posted today at Life Is Beautiful, after a brief absence. Although men don't typically send flowers to other men, Jeff, these are for you . . . a homage to the lovely photographic work you've been doing with the natural world of late, and to fathers who tried hard to show us some of the beauty around us . . .

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I crawled in underneath one large bush, more a tree than a shrub . . .
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An ancient rhododendron bush, having lived a long life and filled many seasons with luxurious purple blooms had come crashing down. Even in death and dessication a marvellously complex structure . . .

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This next is a slightly cropped detail of a larger image, which follows just after it. I rarely crop photos, or perform any other processing of the original images. Have barely scratched the surface of Photoshop. I guess I'd rather spend my time out looking for the mysteries in this world. Although I have considerable respect for those artists who have mastered the fine arts of enhancing and transforming digital images into magical affairs. I'm thinking of Roxana and Lynne, for example. So these next two are dedicated to you two . . . Blooms about to open . . . drenched in unbelievable violet hues from impossibly natural sources . . .
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