Article 3 (Mar 2017): The Plants of Augusta

The Masters Tournament could be held in no month but April. The reason in one word: Azaleas.
 
The 300-acre grounds of famous course at the Augusta National Golf Club, the site of the tournament, was a nursery from 1857 to 1910 and it was full of thousands of varieties of plants. Generations of landscape architects since the 1930s have preserved the various plantings and added more than 80,000 new plants in 350 varieties.
 
No plant is more picturesque and television-ready than the 30 varieties of azaleas.  April brings mountains and mounds of blazing pink azaleas in bloom for the Masters Tournament. It's a perfect setting for photos of serious pro golfers concentrating on a shot at the 13th hole, which is known for its bank of blooms.
 
Some of the most notable plant features existed before the course was created. The well-known 330-yard entryway to the course is lined with Magnolias planted in the 1850s, according to masters.com.  An enormous, sprawling live oak by the clubhouse is thought to be more than 150 years old.
 
The clubhouse also features the largest, and grandest, wisteria vine in the country.  The allure of the private course was summed up by Arnold Palmer, "When I got here, I felt like I was walking on a cloud."