The cute little Alpine snowbell is native in the mountains but it thrives also on flatlands. The most crucial prerequisite is sufficient shade. The leaves of the Alpine snowbell are reniform, thick, stiff and evergreen. Conifers provide the best cover especially in spring when deciduous trees are still bare and the sun shines brightly. In sunshine the leaves of the Alpine snowbell become pale and may suffer from brown, dry spots.
In addition to blue heath, there are about twenty other species in the Phyllodoce genus, growing in North America and Eurasia. Blue heath is a low spreading sub-shrub, growing naturally in Finland, particularly north of Kuusamo. The leaves are narrow, leathery and evergreen. The flowers, borne in pairs on longish stalks, are barrel- or bell-shaped, nodding at the stem tips. Blue heath avoids the most exposed, windiest situations. It is commonly found in the wild together with the somewhat similar-looking crowberry (Empetrum).
Labrador tea is a rhododendron! The Labrador teas (Ledum) were combined with the rhododendrons (Rhododendron) in 1990 on the basis of molecular studies. The Finnish researcher Harri Harmaja has re-named most of the known Labrador teas, including the native Finnish species, formerly Ledum palustre, now Rhododendron tomentosum. The Ledums hybridise with some Rhododendron species, which indicates their close relationship.
The Ledums were an independent genus for over 200 years, from the time of Linné, until molecular studies in the 1990s combined them with the rhododendrons (Rhododendron). Their close relationship is indicated by the numerous successful crossing between the formerly separate genera.
Rhodora is a small modest shrub azalea from Canada well adapted to the Finnish climate, which is hardly surprising as it is the northernmost azalea in the world. It grows naturally in North America and survives even the semi-Arctic conditions of the Labrador peninsula in eastern Canada’s conifer belt.
Smirnow’s rhododendron is native to the Caucasus, where it grows in the mountains at 800-2000m asl, close to and above the tree-line. This is one of the hardiest of the wild rhododendrons and its foliage alone makes it a magnificent shrub. The new leaves and shoots are covered in silvery-white felt. On the undersides of the leaves this velvety indumentum, which feels warm to the touch, remains from year to year. This felty surface is common to many mountain species of rhododendron, helping them to endure occasional drought periods.
Of the large-leaved rhododendrons, yellow-flowered rosebay (Rhododendron aureum) has spread the furthest north, its range including eastern Siberia, the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk, Kamchatka, the Sakhalin and Kurile Islands, Japan, Manchuria, and Korea, usually at and above the tree-line. Its winter hardiness is excellent though it is considered difficult to grow for various reasons. In the Amur area and on the coasts of Russia’s Far East a forest form of the yellow-flowered rosebay is found, which the Russians sometimes consider a species in its own right, R.
The mountain pieris, or fetterbush, is an attractive evergreen shrub growing to about two metres, with an attractive display of clusters of pink flower buds in autumn. They wait through the winter before opening in long lines of small white bells drooping below the curved stems the following spring.
False azaleas are so closely related to the true azaleas that it has recently been suggested that they be included in the same genus. When not in flower this species closely resembles an azalea. However, the flowers are small, reddish and bell-shaped, more like blueberry than azalea flowers. Leaves are bluish green, slightly sticky and strongly scented, growing in attractive bunches. They take on orange-brown autumn colours and are deciduous.
A large patch of sheep laurel can be found near the pool in Mustila’s Tuijalaakso (White-cedar Valley). The low evergreen shrubs flower in July, when the leaf axils near the tips of the shoots are filled with small, open vase-shaped, rose-red flowers crowned with new foliage.
Sheep laurel grows naturally in the eastern parts of North America in poor soil, in forests, on moors, mires and rocks. The English common names clearly indicate the poisonous properties of the plant.