Rhododendron Sale: So Many Colors, So Little Space

     Decades ago, one of my older sisters planted three rhododendron plants. They all eventually passed away, the last one due to construction workers trampling the area when they installed a foundation under my parents' house. I don't remember what colors they were or where the third bush was planted.
     Last year, when my mother was in physical rehab., I decided to pursue a long-time goal of replacing the rhododendrons, one of my mother's favorite flowers. I purchased a pink one from Wintergreen Nursery at Winston, and a dark purple one from Lybarger Nursery at the Douglas County Master Gardeners' annual plant sale at the fairgrounds.
     The pink one is still green and budding, but it hasn't grown since last year. It sits at the SE corner of the house, where one of my sister's bushes once stood. The purple one was planted at the NE corner of the house, another one of my sister's locations, but alas, the purple one is full of brown leaves and looks like it may have passed away as well. It didn't help things several months ago, when I accidentally pulled a garden hose around the plant's base, causing the bush to partially uproot.
     TODAY, my mother and I visited a nursery west of Drain (www.kelleygreennursery.com) that was having a sale on...you guessed it...rhododendrons. They had three shades of purple from violet blue to dark purple (but no black purple). They had white, yellow, orange, and red rhodies. When the owner said the word yellow, my mother's favorite color, I knew my mother would want one. We actually had gone there to purchase a dark purple one to replace the one that I had ravaged.
     The nursery owner told us the yellow ones are extremely popular. While they're not exactly rare, they are hard to come by. In the spring, when the nursery truck brings the rhodie plants from the farm down to the roadside stand along Highway 38, they don't even bother to unload the truck of yellow rhododendrons. That's because customers will scoop them all up within a matter of hours.
     What happened? You guessed it...we purchased BOTH a "Horizon Monarch Yellow" and a "Anah Kruschke Purple" plants. When my mother asked if they had any beet red rhodies, the owner brought out another "Anah Kruschke" plant, before he realized they were the same color. I guess dark purple and beet red aren't too apart on the color spectrum.?.
     It's a good thing we don't have more open space around the house. Otherwise, we might have come home with a white, orange, and a different shade of purple plants. As it is, I'll struggle to find some space to plant the yellow one, probably near the NW corner of the house, partly under the shade of a Locust tree by the garage, but in direct contact with the afternoon sun.
     I'm a little more optimistic about the rhododendrons we purchased today. For one thing, they're about three feet tall with buds on them, more than twice the size of the rhodie plants I got last year.