Fort Ebey, Washington State’s Rhododendron

May, 2021

Did you know there is one specific species of Rhododendron that is native to the State of Washington? And that this one species is the state flower of the State of Washington? And that there is a huge forested park on Whidbey Island where only that one species of Rhododendron grows? Of course, it grows many other places in Washington too, but no other varieties or species of Rhododendron are allowed in this one very special, large, woodland on Whidbey Island. It’s true. Read on.

Today was special for me, the whole day!

The last blog post here described this morning’s excursion to Rosario Beach and included some really special stuff (the beach, a boat, the otter), but this afternoon’s explorations added even more on top of that.

First off this afternoon, the photo below shows the trucks of my two sets of friends who were camping with me (and I with them). Their trucks are each in their respective campsites, my truck is in my campsite just barely off of the photo to the left. Look at the white truck on the left below. In every photo I took of it, it always seemed to have a little smile on its face. A happy camper indeed. 🙂

Ok, back to this afternoon and our adventures. This afternoon, one of my friends and I took off on a short road trip 20 minutes or so south of the campground, past the town of Coupeville to the “Rhododendron Park”. When I was growing up on Whidbey, I knew about the Rhododendron Park since it had been there forever and my family and I drove past it many, many times. But I hadn’t realized that camping facilities had been added to the park in more recent times. So today in the year 2021 we drove down there, parked, and walked through the park and the campground.

We had the place to ourselves, not another human in sight.

The park and campground cover many, many acres. Throughout this old woodland were hundreds of lovely Rhododendron plants, all with pink flowers. You might think of Rhododendrons as thick and heavy with leaves and branches, very dense shrubs. The native ones (at least in the State of Washington) are not dense at all. The photo below shows pretty much exactly how every Rhododendron in this park looks, and they have always looked like this, since these are the Rhododendrons that are native to Washington State. They are tall, much taller than a human, and very open and airy, and the blossoms are very pink! I was glad we were here in the spring when they were blooming.

 

 

For scientific details about Rhododendrons, take a look at this Wikipedia website, although there is just too much Latin and scientific detail there for me. I know some of you Readers are plant people and might love this sort of information. For others of you, you might like this next Chimacum Woods Rhododendron Nursery website and the sentence and the photos about R. Macrophyllum, our native Rhododendron (click on the “macrophyllum” link on that website to get to the photos). Chimacum Woods Nursery is near Port Ludlow right here in the State of Washington.

Besides the pretty Rhodendrons, I noticed many trees had what I think is a fungus on some of their roots (photos below). What is it? Do any of you know?

 

As mentioned, we walked through the campsite areas here. There were only two areas for camping, and not many individual campsites in each area. The campsites were spaced FAR apart. My friend and I talked often about coming here and camping here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only concern I had with this campground was that every campsite had just the “tent” sign on it. The Rhododendron Park website talks of three RV sites, but we found none with an “RV” sign on it. And yet, as the photos show above at the beginning of this blog post, there is a nice blacktop road through the park and through the campground area. So maybe all of the sites are for both tent and RV? We don’t know.

My friend and I had a great time traipsing along the road and among the campsites. We also headed off on a number of trails through the trees and the rhodies (Rhododendrons). It was so pretty here.

After we saw what we wanted to see, we then jumped back in whichever vehicle we brought (I can’t remember if it was her truck or mine). And then we drove back to our campsites at Fort Ebey State Park.

Little Towhee … you remember Little Towhee … she had come along with us for the excursion to the Rhododendron Park. A great number of times while we were walking, we stopped in order to allow her time to talk with the other birds there. She not only talked, she flitted and flirted and jumped and jounced. She loved it there!

By the time we got back to our campsites, and I got back to big Towhee the Trailer, I fear Little Towhee was worn out. She managed to jump up onto the trailer door step, but there she sat. Even after I opened the door, she just sat there, longingly staring up into the trailer.

Of course, I gently picked her up and put her inside the trailer, brought her a little water to sip and a few seeds to eat, and then I fashioned a nice warm little nest of towels for her on the bed. She was snoozing within micro-seconds!

I hoped she was dreaming of those trees and that woodland, and the birds there who had become her friends, and the very pink, happy Rhododendrons.