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Yesterday, Monday afternoon, Kerry, our dogs and another dog of our friends, landed at one of the ‘Beaches’ near one of the boat ramps. We climbed a bit because of the steepness of getting down into the cove. When we climbed back up to go to our car, I noticed white to pink blossoms on the Gorge Rhododendron (or Piedmont Rhododendron), Rhododendron minus!!! OH my!! That is one of my favorite plants! These Rhododendrons bloom in spring… but every now and then, they will have a second bloom again, especially when the weather is warm in October. Some of you may have been to our place in the woods. We have a ‘skinny cove’ on our family property, and it has a NE facing slope where we have the gorge Rhododendron. After I got home yesterday, I walked up to the patch to see if it might have a second bloom. NOPE. Given the warm weather, more sun and that big lake may have something to do with the blooms! There is a similar Gorge Rhododendron, R. carolinianum (a Southern Appalachian endemic) flowering earlier at higher elevations. One of several differences between the Gorge Rhododendron vs the Great Rosebay Rhododendron (R. maximum) – R. minus has smaller leaves and glandular-peltate scales, like gold dots on the underside of the leaf. R. maximum have longer leaves and don’t have glandular scales. ~ David White, JLT Naturalist