Here are the Top Ten Questions we've received since this Web page was picked up by the search engines.

• It's cold
• It's hot.
• I got it at the grocery store. Will it die?
• Can I move it?
• Name my mystery azalea.
• What about sun?
• What's wrong with where I live?
• Too dead
• Too big
• Gaps in my row of azaleas

How can I grow azaleas in Idaho/northern Minnesota/Alaska/Nevada? It's cold here.

You have two choices. You can try deciduous azaleas, or you can grow potted azaleas and keep them indoors during bad weather. Deciduous azaleas come in beautiful colors. The Northern Lights hybrids are the hardiest on the market, able to handle temperatures as low as -40 F. They can grow to a height of six feet, too. Even these need some shelter and a good mulch in winter, though.

The real issue is keeping the roots protected. With most azaleas and rhododendrons, the roots actually suffer more damage than the branches when temperatures drop well below freezing, say at about 20-25 degrees F. If you want to put potted azaleas out on your patio but you still have a chance of a few cold nights in May, layer some mulch over the soil as extra protection for the roots.

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How can I grow azaleas in the sunshine in Texas? It's hot here.

That's true. The issue is, it's also cold in some parts. Texas stretches across 5 climate zones and some very different soil types. Here are some general guidelines for the more moderate parts of the state. You're going to have a hard time with the deciduous azaleas due to warm soil as much as to the warmth of the air.

Talk to your local garden center and be sure to get evergreen azaleas grown in a nursery either nearby or in a similar climate. Once you get them home, the keys to success will be location and reliable water. The location must involve acidic soil, shade from direct sun in the middle of the day, a loose mulch, organic matter in the soil, and good drainage. If you can't provide these, grow another shrub which suits your soil and will thrive in your garden.

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If you buy from a grocery store, is it considered only a house plant, or in the spring can you plant it outside? Or is it best to buy it from a nursery for outdoors. How do you keep it alive in an office or at home?

The answers depend on your climate and your soil. Are azaleas a popular garden plant in your area? If so, a "grocery store azalea" probably will adjust to life in your garden. One problem with azaleas sold as potted plants for gifts is that they rarely have tags to let you know what variety they are and how much cold they can tolerate in the winter.

As a general rule, though, you are right -- a local nursery is usually the best source for outdoor plants that will grow well in that region.

Now your third question, can an azalea be kept in an office or a home successfully? Yes, especially if it's a Satsuki, Belgian, Indian, Kurume or other azalea commonly cultivated in pots and sold as a flowering potted plant.

A potted azalea needs:

1. enough water to keep the soil moist
2. repotting after flowering ends in late spring. Use a slightly larger container and add peatmoss to fill in.
3. regular fertilizing
4. a half-shady to half-sunny window

As the days become longer and the sun rays stronger, a potted azalea will tolerate more shade, especially through the middle of the day. However, toward the end of summer it is important to move the plant into more sunlight and to water a little less. This is to harden the wood and encourage a heavy bud set for next year's flowers.

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I planted an azalea. (Or, somebody else planted an azalea twenty years ago.) Can I move it?

Azaleas transplant quite well because they have very shallow roots. They gather most of their nutrients and water from the top six inches of soil, so even large bushes do not have a heavy root mass. You can move them at any time of year but now, right after blooming in the spring, would be better than waiting until the summer. That's because moving after blooming would be less disruptive to the formation of new growth in July and the bud formation in September.

I had to move six large Kaempo azaleas four years ago on a 104 F day in August -- yuk -- to get them out of the way of a construction crew. The weather was awful, but they were moved and have done very well since them. They had to be watered every other day all the rest of the summer, but every one of them survived and is now thriving. The trick is to do the digging for the new locations first so that you can pull them up from their old positions and plop them directly into the new holes. Azaleas have to have good drainage and are usually planted a little "high" in their holes for that reason. If you need to add sand or peat moss, you can do that first. With azaleas, it's much more effective to dig a wide hole 7 or 8 inches deep than to dig a deep, narrow hole. The roots will spread out, but they just won't go to a depth where they cannot access oxygen. No deep digging -- another reason to like azaleas.

When you dig them out, get as much of the root as you can. Situate the plant a little high to help drainage, and fill in with soil and peat moss. Water immediately and continue to keep the plants well watered for this first summer. Fertilizer is not particularly important or helpful at this point for azaleas; it's better to make sure that the soil is fairly light and well-drained.

Your azaleas may take the transplanting process better than the container-grown plants at a garden center would. The ones raised in artificial soil mixes have more trouble with new roots and water regulation than azaleas which have grown in regular soil.

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Here's a picture of the azaleas in my yard. They are pink. What is the exact name of this type of azalea? I want to get ten more exactly like it.

There are hundreds and hundreds of azaleas, and lots of them are variations of pink. It's always best to get the NAME OF THE CULTIVAR when you buy azaleas and to buy only these named cultivars if you want to have plants that match. Named cultivars are clones of an original parent plant which had specific characteristics.

Your best bet now is to wait until your azaleas come into bloom again. Snip off a branch and go to the garden center near you with the greatest selection of azaleas. Try to match yours. If there are no azaleas quite like it, then look for a purple, white, rose, or a bi-color that will blend with your pink ones instead of clashing.

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Azaleas are a shade plant, right? Will it kill mine if I plant it in a sunny place?

One general rule of thumb with azaleas and rhododendrons is that the larger the leaf, the more shade the plant requires. Most azaleas, then, can tolerate sun better than most of the rhododendrons to begin with. Other positive aspects of growing azaleas in sun are that they develop more compactly, produce more flower buds, and develop tougher stems. In too much shade, they tend to be tall, leggy, and have fewer blooms and branches.

Azaleas can tolerate sun much better in areas of high humidity. The real problem with sunshine occurs when summer days are in the high 90s and the humidity drops. (This isn't the usual pattern on the East Coast, where hot and humid go together.) On a very hot, dry day, moisture evaporates from the leaves so quickly that there can be considerable destruction of chlorophyll, causing the leaves to turn light green to yellow to brown.

What can you do about all this? Azaleas will thrive in full morning sun if they can get some afternoon shade for protection during the hottest part of the day. Trees, buildings, or larger shrubs can provide this. A good watering is essential for azaleas in full sun when a few days of hot, dry weather strike. In addition, a loose organic mulch will help keep the soil cool and moist, which promotes even growth.

Something to remember when you read an American gardening book is that the author has to take into account a wide variety of climate conditions. "Full sun" means one thing in a Florida summer and another out on the cloudy parts of the West Coast and still another in Delaware or Texas. Authors have to write in very general terms about sun.

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I asked that stupid guy at the garden center for some azaleas that would do well around here, and he said azaleas don't grow well here and I ought to buy lilacs. Tell me some azaleas that would grow well here in .............

Maybe the guy isn't so stupid. Trying to grow any plant in the wrong climate, wrong soil, wrong humidity, wrong rainfall, etc. is a doomed effort. If you live in a area with harsh winters, alkaline soil, dry air, and infrequent rainfall, azaleas will be a lot of trouble and a bad idea. Grow something that thrives where you live. Maybe lilacs?

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My azaleas keep dying. What's wrong with them?

Here's what azaleas require -- Is this your yard?

Soil

• Acid rather than alkaline, pH 4.5-5.5
• Reasonable fertility
• Good drainage

Light

• Sufficient light indoors or out 50 percent or more of the day to produce buds
• Shade from the hot afternoon sun

Other

• Porous mulch to keep the soil temperature moderate
• Protection from drying wind
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My azaleas are too big. They grow like crazy around here. How can I make them stay the size I want?

Are you asking about young azaleas and keeping them dense and well-shaped, or old azaleas which bloom only on the outer tips of the branches but are full of dead wood inside? It's not difficult in either situation to control an azalea.

First, the time period for pruning runs from early spring to about the end of July. By August the plant will begin setting flower buds for the following year, and you will lost much of of your future bloom by pruning then or in the fall. Azaleas do make a nice cut flower for arrangments, so you can combine your pruning with the flowering season.

A young plant: Azaleas have potential buds scattered all along the stems, so you may cut them back to any point. Check the long shoots, and cut them back to the point where you would like them to branch. Within a month or so they should develop branching shoots. Azaleas can develop too many branches which results in smaller flowers and shading (and death) of the inside branches. If this is your situation, prune out any weak branches with poor development to let some sunshine reach the inner areas.

An older plant: Sometimes an azalea has developed an awkward shape, or has been sheared off so often that the bush seems to consist of nothing but wood and a few leaves and flowers on the outside. That calls for severe pruning. In about 2-3 years you will have a much smaller and more attractive plant. Check whether there are any small shoots at the bottom of the plant, indicating that some light is reaching that area already. If so, cut the wood back drastically to the height you desire, reducing the height from say, 5 feet down to 2 feet.

This will look pretty drastic as you transform your flowering shrub into a mass of stubs, but if you do it at the right time (perhaps May/June), the plant does have time to recover in June/July and begin to form some buds in August for next spring's growth. It will flower even more successfully the next season. The alternative is to cut about 1/3 of the branches down to the desired height each year for 3 years. This practice allows more light to reach the inner branches so that the plant will be more filled out with foliage by the time you take down the last tall branches. It looks less drastic.

A final idea is consider whether you really want to transplant an overgrown azalea to another spot and replace it with a *new* and different variety which will naturally grow only to the height you really want. Azaleas transplant well, and your local garden center should be able to give you advice about what varieties would suit your requirements for size and color in the local climate. Go ahead and prune. Azaleas are very forgiving and recover well. Just get it done before midsummer.

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I planted a row of twelve azaleas, same kind. Three of them are dead, and I can't remember what they were. Tell me what to do about it.

It never turns out to have been a great idea to plant a row of any shrub and expect them to grow exactly the same way. You have your twelve plants, and what happens?

• #3 dies
• #5 grows just fine, but the foliage is always a different green from the others and looks funny
• #7 won't grow
• #10 dies
• #11 grows twice as fast as any of the others

So that's what it looks like most of the time, right?

Make it look like you intended to have a mixed shrub row by adding either different azaleas or other bushes which like the same conditions --mountain laurel, rhododendrons, enkianthus, tea olive. Add a small evergreen that will be a good background and a windbreak for the azaleas. Add some small wild flowers such as bloodroot, solomon's seal, lily of the valley, or larger perennials such as hostas or ferns. Try a few daffodils and tulips, or add arum for color in other seasons. The resulting contrast can be more interesting and satisfying to the eye than a matched row of bushes that bloom for ten days and look slightly mis-matched for the other 355 days a year.

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---

Anne Wolf
CS129
Howard Community College
Columbia, Howard County, Maryland, USA
(Zone 7a, natural oak forest, great place to grow azaleas. Alas, no volcanos, though)