Mississippi
Gardens
Newsletter ArchivesSome deciduous
azaleas you have to try
Mississippi Gardens Newspaper and Web Column - January 26, 2004
This
winter and spring there will no doubt be a lot of trees, shrubs and flowers
placed in the landscape.
Planting is a great topic because it may be our favorite gardening activity. It doesn't matter whether it is in the vegetable garden, flowerbed or shrub border, gardeners just like to put plants in the ground. We plant in hope that one day, sooner or later, those plants will bring us the pleasure of added beauty or useful function.
Today there are so many choices and usually limited space that we have to be very careful about what plants we select. One man said to me, "Please stop writing about all these plants, I'm running out of room in my yard!" Sorry friend, I've got some deciduous azaleas that you've just got to have!
Deciduous azaleas represent a rather large group of plants that will be blooming in six weeks or so. That's when the pink, yellow, orange and cream-colored flowers and perhaps enchanting fragrance will captivate you.
Many Southerners first encountered native deciduous azaleas while walking in the woods. There they may have spotted the pink, delicate flowers of Honeysuckle azalea (Rhododendron canescens) or the orange-yellow blooms of the Flame azalea (Rhododendron austrinum). Maybe it was the white, yellow- blotched flowers of the Alabama Azalea (Rhododendron alabamense) that is arguably the most fragrant of all the deciduous native azaleas. Over the years, many of these were removed from the wild and propagated by southern nurserymen.
Deciduous azaleas prefer moist, sandy, well-drained soil. Morning sun with afternoon shade will enhance blooming and reduce excessive drying. Pine straw or pine bark mulch should be added to protect the shallow root system. Fertilizing with 1/2 pound of slow release fertilizer per 25 square feet in March should be sufficient.
As landscape specimens, or for use in shrub borders, deciduous azaleas are excellent. Deciduous azaleas are not always available in the market place partly because they are not as widely known and understood as their evergreen cousins. Some plants that gardeners may readily find in garden centers are actually hybrids developed by nurserymen from Mobile, Alabama and aptly grouped as the Confederate series. These hybrids are well adapted to our climate, have larger blooms than the native azaleas and they're all fragrant.
Some names to look for include 'Admiral Semmes' that has big, fragrant yellow flowers and 'Col. Mosby' with large fragrant deep pink flowers that fade to light pink with yellow blotch. Also, look for 'Robert E. Lee' featuring fragrant red flowers, 'Stonewall Jackson' has fragrant orange flowers and 'Private Lafayette Acree' displays ruffled orange-red blossoms. Somehow, I'm sure you can find a spot for one or more of these in your landscape. Happy gardening!
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These archived columns were written by Kerry Johnson, a hobby gardener, former weekly newspaper columnist and retired Extension Horticulture Agent for 11 coastal counties in Mississippi.