Azaleas in Bloom: Springtime Memories at Behnke Nurseries

For many folks, springtime meant a Saturday trip to Behnke Nurseries. We were known for many things, but I imagine our azalea and rhododendron sales area never failed to impress. For many years, the azaleas were grown in the ground at various nurseries, dug, and shipped to Behnke’s, where they would be “planted” into raised beds of a peat moss/bark mix. The customer would make a selection and one of the “field men” would dig the azalea up again, and probably wrap the root ball in a piece of burlap to keep the roots from drying out. Sort of like an azalea diaper.

Over the years, growers switched to growing the azaleas in pots, and for perhaps the last twenty years or so that we were open, the azaleas were all sold in plastic pots. In addition to the azaleas we bought from outside growers, we also grew a lot of our azaleas at our production nurseries at Largo and Lothian. Our woody plant buyers over the years–including Helmut Jaehnigen, Alfred Millard, and Miri Talabac–did a terrific job of sourcing the widest selection possible of high-quality azaleas. The azalea sales area in spring is one of the many things I miss about Behnke’s.