Henry Mitchell would be proud

The late, lamented garden writer for the Post used to encourage people to plant the most outrageously brilliant azaleas if they liked and let good taste go hang. I can't track down the exact quote, but in "The Essential Earthman" he does say,

"I have a shocking patch of azaleas, fortunately not very large, of pink, three shades of red, and a couple of whites. I like them, but they are dangeroulsy close to grossness... I knew it was wrong to add two or three yellow-orange-salmon-tawny deciduous azaleas across the walk from the reds and pinks..."

My contribution to grossness in azaleas is this enormous clump under the living room windows, which came with the house and goes on without fail despite my almost total lack of care for it. It's not really fair to call it gross, I guess, it's just very intense. And though it might not have been my choice to begin with, I have come to enjoy its lushness.