🌺 George L. Taber Rhododendron
What it looks like
Why this variety
George L. Taber — usually just ‘Taber’ in the trade — is the most widely planted Southern Indica azalea, and it earns that rank: huge, single, pale-pink flowers with a white throat and a darker pink blotch, opening in spring on a vigorous evergreen shrub 8–10 feet tall and wide. The flowers are softer and paler than Formosa’s magenta, which makes Taber the azalea for a garden that wants spring colour without shouting, and for pairing with deeper pinks and whites.
In Florida, Taber is at home in the north and central peninsula in part shade, acid soil and steady moisture, like all Indicas. It is a shade more cold-tender than some Indicas, so in north Florida plant it in a sheltered spot rather than an exposed one, and expect a late freeze to nip the buds in a bad year — the shrub recovers, but that year’s bloom may be thinner, which is a weather note, not a defect.
How to grow
Florida honesty, in the good direction for once: these are not the northern rhododendrons that melt in Florida heat. Southern Indica azaleas are evergreen azaleas — and azaleas are rhododendrons, botanically speaking — bred for the Gulf South, with big, showy spring flowers in white, pink, red and purple on shrubs 6–10 feet tall. Plant in fall or spring in part shade — morning sun, afternoon shade — in rich, moist, well-drained, acidic soil amended with pine bark and compost, and mulch thickly with pine bark or pine needles. Water faithfully through the first two years; Indica azaleas are thirsty shrubs and a dry spring costs you the bloom. Keep them away from concrete and limestone, which leach alkalinity, and site them where a 6-foot shrub will be welcome in five years, not where it will be sheared into a box.
Water & feeding
Water deeply and consistently; Indica azaleas hate drying out and bloom best with steady moisture. Mulch 3–4 inches deep to hold moisture and acidity. Feed lightly after flowering with an acid-loving fertiliser — feeding before bloom pushes leaves at the expense of flowers. Never cultivate deeply around them; azalea roots are shallow.
Common problems
Lace bugs stipple leaves in summer, worst on sun-stressed plants — shade and water are the prevention, horticultural oil for severe cases. Root rot in soggy ground and chlorosis in alkaline soil are the other complaints, and both are siting verdicts. Petal blight may spot flowers in wet springs; pick off affected blooms and improve air circulation. A yellow azalea in limey soil is a soil verdict, not a hunger verdict.
Harvest
No fruit harvest — the crop is the spring show. Prune lightly after flowering if shaping is needed, and water faithfully through the bloom: a dry spring thins Taber’s huge flowers faster than any pest does. Feed lightly after flowering with an acid-loving fertiliser.
Nerdy fact: George L. Taber was a real nurseryman — the azalea was named for him in the early 20th century, when Southern Indica azaleas were being selected and named by the growers who raised them. Your Taber is named for a person, not a marketing department, which is rarer than it should be.
Saving seeds
George L. Taber is the most widely planted Southern Indica azalea — botanically a rhododendron — and named cultivars are propagated by cuttings so the pale-pink flowers and vigorous habit hold. The Saving seeds section of the Rhododendron guide covers seed for the species generally.