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Gardening InformationGrowing and Caring for Rhododendrons and Azaleas
by:
Michael McGroarty
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GROWING AND CARING FOR RHODODENDRONS AND AZALEAS
Azaleas can be either evergreen or deciduous. Deciduous Azaleas are acknowledged as Mollis or Exbury Azaleas. They bloom in the early spring with vivid orange and yellow colors. They can be full-grown from seed if the seeds are collected in the fall and seeded on top of damp vegetable matter at simply about 70 degrees F.
Evergreen Azaleas are acknowledged as broad leaf evergreens because they do not have needles. They bloom later in the spring, and are normally propagated in the fall over bottom heat discussed in detail at http://www.freeplants.com Rhododendrons are besides broad leaf evergreens and are besides propagated over bottom heat in early winter.
The better time to prune Rhododendrons and Azaleas is in the spring right after they bloom. These plants start setting next year’s flower buds over the summer, and late pruning wish cost you several blooms next year, so get them cropped
as shortly as they stop blooming. It’s besides a good idea to pick off the spent blooms so the plants don’t expel a lot of energy devising seeds, unless of course you’d like to grow them from seed. But support in mind that they don’t move true from seed.
Seeds from a red Shrub are likely to flower pale lavender. Cuttings ensure a duplicate of the parent plant. How do you prune Rhododendrons and what makes pinching a Shrub mean? These are often asked questions.
Pinching is a low impact form of pruning that is really effective for creating nice, tight full plants once
you are growing small plants from seeds or cuttings. Typically a Shrub forms a single new bud at the tip of each branch. This new bud wish develop into another new branch, another bud wish form and the process wish continue. If left alone this wish produce a really lanky plant with a lot of space between the branches, forming a really unattractive plant.
So if you are starting with a plant that is nothing much than a frozen cutting all you have to do is pinch off this new growth bud as shortly as it is simply about 3/8” long. Simply grab it between your fingers and snap it wholly off. Once
you do this the plant normally responds by replacement that single bud with two, three, or even as four new buds in a cluster about the bud that you pinched off. Each one of these buds wish develop into branches and eventually a single bud wish appear at the tip of each of these branches, and of course you should move on
and pinch each one of those off, forcing the plant to produce multiple buds at the end of each of these branches.
The much often you pinch off these single buds, the much branches the plant wish form, devising a nice, tight, full plant. This is especially helpful with young plants such as frozen cuttings or young seedlings.
But what simply about larger plants, how do I prune them? I prune mine with hedge shears!!! I simply have at it and trim them like I would-be a Genus taxus or a Juniper, and guess what? The result is a really tight compact plant loaded with beautiful flowers. My Rhododendrons are so tightly branched that you cannot see through them, and that is the result of vigorous pruning with hedge shears. Sure you can use hand shears, and you’ll have a nicer plant because of it, but I simply use the hedge shears because that’s the tool that I happen to have in my hand as I am going by.
Keeping Rhododendrons and Azaleas healthy and happy is as simple as understanding what they like. 1st of all, they like to grow in a climate that suits their tastes. Galore varieties of several don’t like it in the north, and to prove the point they wish up and die as shortly as extreme cold weather hits. Buy plants that are acknowledged to be hardy in your area.
Here in zone 5 (northern Ohio) the following Azaleas seem to do well: Hino Crimson (red), Stewartstonia (red), Musician (lavender), Cascade (white), Delaware Vale (white), and Rosebud (pink). Hardy Rhododendrons include Roseum Elegans (pinkish lavender), English Roseum (pinkish lavender), Star
Zembla (red), Lee’s Dark Purple, Chinoides (white), and Cunningham’s (white).
How should you fertilize Rhododendrons and Azaleas? These broad-leafed evergreens are set back and like to take it slow and easy. Do not fertilize them with quick release n fertilizers, it could kill them. Instead give them an organic snack, like Millorganite or well decayed cow manure or compost. Millorganite is an organic fertiliser ready-made of coarse
sewerage sludge.
No, it doesn’t smell any worse than another fertilizers, and plants like it because it is plant and soil friendly. It won’t burn the plants, and it really reactivates the micro-organisms in the soil. That’s a good thing. Most full service garden centers carry Millorganite.
A long time ago person let the word out that Rhododendrons are acid admiring plants, and folk are always asking me if I think their troubled
Shrub inevitably much acid. The answer is no. Your troubled
Shrub probably inevitably a great big gulp of o about its root system.
Rhododendrons do not like wet feet. They don’t even as like high humidness let alone wet soil about their roots. They like to be high and dry, and like an clear flow of o to their roots. You can accomplish this by planting them in a bed raised at least 10” with good rich topsoil. They wish be smiling from branch to branch.
A few years back my friend Larry and I had several hundred small Rhododendrons that we were going to grow on to larger plants. We planted most of them in Larry’s yard which is fairly good soil, but a little sticky. We didn’t have room for all of them so we planted the last 105 down the road from my home in a field we were renting. (Never detected
of anybody rental a field? You should get out more.)
This location had perfectly no water for irrigating and the soil was really dry and rocky. Another plants at that location often struggled during the dog days of summer due to the lack of water, but those Rhododendrons were as happy as pigs in mud. They outgrew the ones at Larry’s home by doubly the rate and we oversubscribed them years earlier than the others.
My point? Rhododendrons don’t like wet feet. They do well in the shade, but contrary to popular belief they do even as better in full sunlight.
Simply simply about the author:
Archangel
J. McGroarty is the author of this article. Visit his most absorbing website, http://www.freeplants.comand sign up for his first-class horticulture newsletter. Article provided by, http://gardening-articles.com
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