'Orine Holm' Azalea
"Wherein no lack of flowers the verdurous night
With stars & pearly nebula o'erlay;
Azalea-boughs half rosy & half white
Shine through the green & clustering apple-spray,
Such as the fairy-queen before her knight
Waved in old story, luring him away
Where round lost isles Hesperian billows break
Or towers loom up beneath the clear, translucent lake."
-Alan Seeger
(1888-1916)
(1888-1916)
'Orine Holm' is a thinly evergreen azalea with large, flat, pink-edged white-centered single blooms with large stamins, in April or May.
The ten-year height of 'Orine Holm' is apt to be in the two to three foot range, wider than it is tall, twiggy & either spreading or fountaining.It is named for Northwest rhododendron & azalea enthusiast Orine Holm of Griswold Nursery, whose sister Garda Griswold bred this particular azalea in the 1970s. A third sister also grows these azaleas, Linda Malland. Their wholesale nursery in Kirkland, Washington, was founded by their father & mother in 1952.
They have developed only a select few named cultivars of rhodies & azaleas over the decades. The azaleas of their own creation presently in production are 'Pamela Mallard,' 'God of Joy,' 'Laura Holm,' 'Shirley Jean North,' & 'Myrtle BeFriel,' in addition to 'Orine Holm.'
I obtained 'Orine Holm' for a client's garden, together with its very similar but much darker rose-red sister-seedling 'Pamela Mallard.'
When I spoke to Orine on the phone, she said that her namesake prefers shade, but that 'Pamela Mallard' is hardier for the sun, despite that they arose from the same seedling group. Both have large single blossoms, with 'Orine Holm' largest of the two.
The parents of these two evergreen azaleas were the low-growing 'Vuyks Rosy-red' developed at the nursery of Vuyk van Nes in Holland from Japanese evergreen azaleas, & a yellow Glenn Dale deciduous azalea introduced by the National Arboretum, called 'Moonbeam,' developed from the tall deciduous Florida Azalea (Rhododendron austrinum).