Azaleas

Spring is here.

Saint Patrick has left more than a few hangovers from parade celebrations, viewers of spectacular sunsets over our local saltwater rivers suffer and endure sand gnats gnawing at exposed body parts, pecan trees and fig trees sneak out trusting green, and vines of yellow jasmine, purple wisteria and the glorious white Cherokee rose, which have cheerfully strangled anything in their path, justify their existence by bursting into color and fragrance, driving honeybees into gourmet ecstasy.

Best of allm the azaleas are in bloom.

zaleas, genus Rhododendron, love the acidic soil of our South Carolina Lowcountry, its protective cover of oak and palmetto, its misting of dew before the sun rises. Unfortunately, many gardeners, afflicted with OCD neatness, are among us, and this gift from Asia is, in many places, manicured, trimmed and confined, allowing only the most determined blooms to peek through the greenery barricade.

Azaleas were meant to fly free, reaching ever upward in graceful arms to the sky above.

Savannah, our neighbor across the way, has long been noted for its attention to all things green. And to azaleas.

True to their nature, after World War I, to celebrate, Savannahians named a road, at least a piece of it, Victory Drive and proceeded to plant it with azaleas and palmettos.

This was no ordinary road.

Beginning at Tybee Island on the Atlantic Ocean and ending at San Diego on the Pacific, U.S. Highway 80 was known as the Dixie Overland Highway.
One particular strip, a little over two miles, ran from the Thunderbolt River in the east to Bull Street in the west and was a double-lane road with a gracious-sized median. Eureka. This was it. Perfect.

They would plant azaleas that grew so well in Savannah. From alba white to salmon and fuchsia, azaleas ran the gamut of pink. They would plant hardy fuchsia Formosa azaleas and shade-providing palmettos two by two and march them down the way — a tribute to fallen veterans and better than any solid granite monument.

And they did.

This seemed like such a good idea, they planted more Formosa, more palmettos on both sides of the road, also known as U.S. Highway 80, also known as Tybee Road, all the way to Lazaretto Creek in the east and beyond Bull Street to U.S. Highway 17.

And it was beautiful.

I remember in the 1940s how Frieda (Pete) Struck of Savannah’s Park and Tree Commission was in charge of their care. Her office was a small, nondescript gray stone building opposite Popeye’s Chicken on Bull Street, where the train tracks cross Victory Drive.

Azaleas have shallow roots, are happiest in swamps and need to be watered.
In Savannah’s summertime, with temperatures reaching extreme levels, Struck would have employees fill water tank trucks and make sure the plants received the water they needed.

Out on Tybee Road, I can still visualize inmates from the local Brown Farm, a Chatham County disciplinary facility, wearing black-and-white striped cotton uniforms, cutting weeds as a guard watched, shotgun over his arm.

One way or another, those azaleas were taken care of.

Today, Victory Drive still has azaleas, knee-high and reduced to haphazard zigzag rows.

“A traffic visual hazard,” they said. “Can’t have those azaleas blinding our view.”

No one touched the palmettos. They still stand, two by two.

But in those long-ago years, dressed in Easter finery, we walked — no, we promenaded — down the center of the median on Victory Drive, under the archway of glorious Formosa blooms overhead.

And it was fine.

Annelore Harrell’s journey is a tapestry woven with fascinating experiences and extraordinary accomplishments. Even at 92 in 2025, Annelore’s energy and zest for life continue to inspire. Annelore Harrell’s story is a testament to living with passion, resilience, and an unquenchable thirst for adventure.