Azalea Growing Care and Pruning Guide
19.01.2024 - 23:45
/ backyardgardener.com
/ Frederick Leeth
(Aza’lea). Botanists now classify all plants they once called Azaleas as Rhododendrons. Garden lovers still use Azalea for deciduous or leaf-losing kinds and for a few that are not, and the name Rhododendron for evergreen kinds which have large, leathery leaves. In the treatment that follows, Azalea is used as a common name and Rhododendron as the scientific name, thus, when a species is named it is written, for example, R. calendulaceum instead of A. calendulacea.
Azaleas are hardy and tender spring and early summer-flowering shrubs, natives chiefly of North America and eastern Asia. They belong to the Heather family, Ericaceae. The name is derived from azaleos, meaning dry or arid, an allusion to their habitat as first described by the earliest.
Azaleas need ample supplies of moisture but will not survive if the soil is constantly waterlogged or is subject to flooding. In dry weather the soil should be thoroughly soaked at about weekly intervals.
Regular (which normally means once a year, in spring before new growth begins) fertilizing promotes good growth. Good fertilizers for Azaleas include cottonseed meal, soybean meal, tankage, old well-rotted manure and commercial fertilizers prepared especially for Azaleas, Rhododendrons, Camellias and other acid soil plants.
The maintenance of a three-inch deep mulch of organic material over the surface of the soil beneath Azaleas is very important. These are surface-rooting shrubs and such a covering protects the roots from excessive heat in summer and excessive cold in winter as well as from harmful drying. Suitable mulch materials are leaf mold, coarse peat moss, coarse compost, bagasse (sugar cane refuse), peanut hulls, ground corncobs, decayed sawdust and wood chips. If any of