Ep. 251 Celebrating the Year of the Azalea and Talking How to Grow Them | #GoodGrowing

Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris Enroth, horticulture educator with University of Illinois Extension coming at you from Macomb, Illinois, and we are gonna be talking about this is the National Garden Bureau's plant of the year, shrub of the year, the azalea. We're talking shrubs because last month was all trees, so we're gonna wean ourself off of trees by talking about azalea this week. But you know I'm not doing this by myself. I'm joined as always every single week by horticulture educator Ken Johnson in Jacksonville.

Hey, Ken.

Hello, Chris. Is there gonna be a transition from shrubs to herbaceous plants?

That Is there

is there an in between species there?

Let's get all the layers today, Ken. Yes. We'll we'll we'll go from our overstory trees to our shrub species, and then we'll get into the the herbaceous. Maybe. Possibly.

Probably not. Someday. I think we're talking vegetables next time. But no. The of course, we're we we we are just we're we're coming off of that tree high, and we're gonna be talking about azaleas today.

So we have to bring in also our horticulture educator, Emily Zweihardt in Milan, Illinois. Emily, welcome back.

Hey, guys. Thanks for having me. Yeah. We need to kinda detox maybe from trees. It was a good month, but I know Ken is ready for some variety, and that's okay.

Mhmm. It's all this mycorrhizae spores are all over me just from digging in all that tree information. Oh, yeah. Plant nerds are loving that one. So let maybe we're we're talking about azaleas today, and this was declared by the National Garden Bureau the shrub of the year.

Is that correct? We have multiples, but this is the shrub.

For year of?

Year of the azalea.

Yes. Year of the azalea for flowering shrub. Alright.

Okay. So we'll we'll just let's preface this show with a few things. Right? Azalea is a southern species. We are a couple northerners here.

Ken, you went to school in the South, so we'll lean on you this entire show. But, yeah, so we we I don't know. I I don't have many azaleas in my neck of the woods, very few, I'll say. How about you, Emily? You're farthest north.

Do you see many azaleas?

I don't see many. I do see some. You know, there are some that are blooming in, you know, different private landscapes, more like positioned near houses. So probably like some, like, microclimates. But no, not enough.

And I really would like more because there's a lot of options that we'll get into. But we're just a little little far north.

Mhmm. And Ken, my southern gentleman, how about you?

There's a few here and there. I think you see more rhododendrons than azaleas, though, which I guess azaleas are rhododendrons too. But, yeah, a few here and there, not a not a whole lot.

Well, you bring up a good point, Ken. Azaleas are rhododendrons, but are rhododendrons azaleas? Can we answer that question? It depends. Okay.

We've answered that question. Wait a second.

So Well, no. Not necessarily. Yes.

So so azaleas, what we call azaleas, are in the genus rhododendron. So both our our rhododendron and rhododendrons, things we call rhododendrons, are in the genus rhododendron. So they are like a group within that. And then azaleas are the group subgenus of of rhododendron. So, I I think most places which you see, like, you look at the number of stamens.

Azaleas have five stamens, whereas rhododendron have 10 is usually the way people are differentiating them. All rhododendrons are going to be evergreen, whereas azaleas, most are deciduous, especially our native species, and there are some that are evergreen. So that's kind of the, I guess, quickest way maybe to tell them apart. And, there's some differences in the leaves and the flowers and stuff too.

Yep. And the size of the leaves can sometimes be an indicator. Yeah. So azaleas typically will have a larger leaf than the azaleas. Right?

I was reading, though, that they also have hybridization happening. And so some like, some of the hybrids have in between number of stamen and different it's a lot. There's a lot of there's a lot of gray area with these these plants. So can I just also at the top of the the podcast here, can I just read you a quote that, like, I read first out of the gate when I started diving into azaleas, which I think set the tone for me? Doctor Michael Duhr, you know, he's world renowned woody plant expert, has a in his it's about rhododendrons, but because now we know that azaleas are rhododendrons, he wrote, even experts do not know the rhododendron genus in its broadest sense.

So that made me nervous when I read that.

We probably will not be covering everything today. No. No. We may try. Yeah.

Just the Azalea. And somebody knows the Sususi and Pentanthera. Those are the, I guess, groups of Azaleas. Was it one of them is citrus, one's evergreen?

Sounds like two bands at the battle of the bands to me. But, yeah, Sususi and Pentathera.

Yeah. The Sususi is one that would retain its leaves year round for the most part. I was reading that there are notes in more northern climates. It can sometimes be semi evergreen, you know, with the cooler colder winter temperatures. But it also can sometimes have the foliage that kinda changes colors, you know, like morphs and has a bit of a fall color to it, which is nice, especially, you know, in in the later fall months.

If it's gonna hold its leaves, having that color remain is really a nice feature, if you can incorporate that in your landscape. And then the pentathera is often really brilliant, kind of bright foliage is what I was observing. And then it will shed its leaves, so it's deciduous. So it kinda goes more along the traditional deciduous shrub route. And most of our native azaleas are of that group.

Right?

Like, all the native ones that I looked at are deciduous. I didn't actually look to see what group they're in because I didn't never came across that in my in my readings.

And I did come across that of our native species, there's 16 that have been recorded in North America. And yes, they are all deciduous. And most of your evergreen azaleas are gonna originate from Asia, which would be China, Japan, or maybe Korea.

I think that's where the most species are too, right, in Asia?

Yes. Very interesting story is like, you know, we have been playing around with azaleas in in the North America hundreds, couple hundred years maybe. But so like in in Japan, the samurai, you know, for thousands of years have been hybridizing azaleas. So the rhododendron satsuki would have these clusters on the different mountains in Japan, and they were slightly different because they had evolved over generations on those different mountaintops. But the samurai would come in and hybridize them and and and really do a lot of interesting kind of genetic manipulation and and created some beautiful plants over just just for for there in Japan.

And that that has taken place over, what we think, thousands of years. So we've just dipped our toe into the pond. It seems like here in North America

Well, and you bring up a good point. Like, they do hybridize easily. Like, they can be cultivated pretty easily, which has led to just like a plethora of different cultivars that are available. There are some that have gained fame, if you will, you know, have name recognition, but there's there are hundreds. You know, doctor Durr has, what, we found 25 pages about them.

There's there's a lot available, so if you can find them. Now not every nursery is gonna be carrying all of them. The ones that are, you know, branded or, you know, have something like that name recognition are the ones that are gonna be found typically in a nursery, but there's a bunch.

And all of the breeding and everything that what I had come across is that they can come in many different colors. But for the most part, when all of these breeders are working with seed, especially for our or the evergreen types, so the Asian types, most of that flower color is gonna come up orange. So they're they're really fighting that orange color or or or trying to maybe manipulate that flower shape or something to do something just beyond that original orange color. So so a lot of those are gonna be orange for our evergreen azaleas, except for the the wild, wacky, crazy hybrids that are coming out these days.

True on the growing requirements? We should. How to grow them?

I I and and, you know, Ken steer the ship here. I I can help, so I I have a little experience in at least planting them from when I went to school down in in Carbondale in Southern Illinois. So but planting anything in Southern Illinois red clay was not fun. I'll let you kick this one off, Ken. But, yeah, how do we grow azaleas?

Alright. So the the big thing is they need acidic soil. So these are in the same family as blueberries. So shouldn't be a surprise that they need acidic soil. So four and a half, five and a half, six is the typical pH range you want.

So, you know, in most of Illinois, we are somehow altering the soil, changing that pH, because for the most part, our our pH is gonna be a little bit higher. And that's that's the big thing. Shade egg something's to some extent, it's gonna depend on on what you're planning. I think a lot of them are gonna prefer partial shade. Some can take full sun, but you gotta be careful with making sure they have enough water.

Otherwise, you're gonna get a lot of scorch on them. So kinda the more of that partial shade, dappled sun, maybe into the shade range. But, again, depending on on what you're planting, so read those plant labels. But you're probably not gonna go wrong with partial shade, for any of them that you're planting. Watering, they for the most part, least for the native ones, they have fairly shallow root systems so that maintaining, moisture in the soil is going to be important.

But they don't like wet feet, so you need to have well drained soil that is still moist. So mulching, things like that to maintain that moisture in the soil, especially if you've evergreen ones, you know, making sure you've got that moisture in the soil so you're not getting winter burn and stuff on those. Then when it comes to pruning, these are blooming in the spring. So if you're pruning these, you wanna prune them after they're done blooming so you're not pruning off any buds or anything like that. But I think for the most part, they don't necessarily need a whole lot of pruning.

They're kinda fairly low maintenance when it comes to pruning requirements for most of them.

I I got another t shirt for us, guys. So plant them high, not deep, azaleas don't like wet feet. What do you think?

There you go. The

t shirt.

Check the store.

That's right. Coming soon. It's imaginary.

Yes. There is no working link for it because there's nothing.

Doesn't exist. So so, yeah, that's I mean, that's that is the gist of it. Mhmm. And one thing we found too is that reflective surfaces. So if you have a wall,

like a

patio, maybe like a solid brick or stone fence, something like that. Those can be also be kind of stressful for the plants too, just that reflective heat and light. As Ken mentioned, these are, you know, you want part part sun for them. And I mean, the at least the native ones, we we know the deciduous ones, they've they've kind of grown and adapted in our our Eastern forests, Southeastern forests. So shade, they can survive that.

You're gonna get more flowers with the more sun you give it. But then the more sun you give it, the more stressed it will be, the harder it will be to establish it. It's kind of a vicious cycle almost, so you're gonna need to baby them a little bit more. Yeah. Four to six hours, good sunlight, I would say, yeah, protect the root system too.

Mulch is critical because as soon as we get into a dry period and that root system dries out, well, now you've stressed your your azalea out, and so you have to really maintain that mulch around it.

Yeah. I think for the sun, some of stuff, it's, like, ideally, it'd be, like, midday. You'd be giving it shade, kind of the heat of the day. In a perfect world is when they'd be getting that, which is easier said than done in a lot of cases. Another thing, like, at least, you know, here in in Central Illinois, a lot of our soils are pretty heavy, a lot of clay.

So raised beds be something you wanna look at if you're gonna be if you wanna try azaleas looking at raised beds to help with that drainage. Because it you know, with our with our heavier soils, they're gonna retain a lot more moisture that these plants may not like.

When it comes to planting, you know, like, properly citing them in terms of, like, the overall size they're going to get because they're long lived plants in our landscape. There are different kind of categories of sizes. Right? Like, some of them are that dwarf size and then some, you know, let's say, maybe under two feet. And then some can get up upwards of 10 plus.

Is that is that right?

Yeah. Yeah. Like, I just looked at the native ones, yeah, some of those are getting ranged two to six feet tall. Others can get up to 10 to 15 feet tall. So

It's a big difference in your landscape. So make sure that choose the right one for the space you're putting it in. Right? You do all that site prep and make sure you're growing conditions and the care of it, you know, you're properly watering, and then it becomes a monster. Or it doesn't fill in at all.

You have this really big space with this little bitty shrub.

Just means you gotta buy more. That's right.

Yes. Yeah. The watering seemed, like, fidgety. Yeah. Like, it was like, it needs moisture.

It needs to stay moist, but not too much because root rot is a concern with azaleas. And so it was like this, like, Goldilocks zone where it was like not too much, but not too little, which in the Midwest can be challenging because we're getting a lot of rain right now. Our soils are pretty saturated, but then we can dry out pretty quick. You know, we can have springs. And just like, you know, we're variable to an extent in the Midwest.

And so I was reading that, I thought, oh, that's a little stressful for a landscape plant.

Well, you're you're right, Emily. Like, I in this presentation, this the presenter showed this hillside of beautiful looking azaleas. We have hillside drainage, which is really good, mulched, but there was this one spot that was like a little seep, like a little spring that stayed had higher levels of soil moisture than the other areas, and the azaleas would not grow there. It's like, oh, that's so finicky to do that. Yeah.

But then on the other hand, the the native ones that have been growing in, you know, the Southeastern Forest for decades, they're well established, They're super tolerant of varying conditions from flooding to drought. I I guess it just takes time. I I don't know. This and a lot of our landscapes are pretty new comparatively.

And I think it depends to some extent, like, on the species or the hybrids you're growing too. Because there's some some of these native species that are there's one of swamp azalea that's growing in in much more wet conditions than some of the others too.

Being in a lower pH soil, is nutrition you know, is the tying up of nutrients a concern for azaleas? Do they suffer from, like, chlorosis? Or

And the chlorosis is usually your pH is wrong. I think it's lot of times when you're seeing chlorosis.

And in that case, a lot of times, the the leaves definitely have a lighter color to them. You can kinda see it. The the ones that are being affected, more of that, like, a brighter lime green, and you just they they just they're more sparse. You know, they don't have as much foliage on them. Yeah.

That that would be something hard to control, I think, in our neck of the woods is that that pH levels.

Raised beds.

That's it.

Start dumping iron on them.

Mhmm. Well, and that's what we had to do down in Southern Illinois is, you know, the the red clay was so gumbo y thick, you couldn't put an azale in there. You had to plant them in a raised bed for them to be successful. That's what it required.

Do we want to talk about the other issues? So I mentioned root rot, but there are other challenges that can, you know, plague azaleas, some insects and some disease challenges that we should be aware of. Ken, do you wanna start with the insects?

Yeah. So there's you know, you look at lists. You know, there's aphids, bores, leafhoppers, mealybugs, mites, scales, things like that. I think the one you most commonly hear problems with those lace bugs. So these are insects that have got piercing, sucking mouth where it's not to throw a picture in because it's kinda hard to describe them, which isn't gonna do you much good if you're just doing the audio version.

But they kinda got these big wings. They're they're lacy looking, that's the name. They've got a lot of veins in them. And, like, the the wings, like, if the light hits them right, it gets some kinda, like, rainbow effect on there. I think they're they're pretty insects, but they will you know, a lot of times around the underside leaves and they're feeding on the leaves, you get the stippling.

These little yellow dots all over the leaves from their feeding damage. And there's an azalea lace bug. There's different lace bugs different species of lace bugs that attack different plants. But azalea lace bug is one you hear quite a bit about. They lay their eggs on or in the leaves, and they'll they'll poop on them, and it's kind of a black tar like almost.

It's kind of a black shiny dot all over the leaves. That's their waste. A lot of times they're covering their eggs with that, so it protects those eggs. So they're kind of the I would say probably the most common insect problem people are gonna run into. And a lot of that is, you know, maintaining a healthy plants, you know, that if it's stressed, it's gonna be more susceptible to to attack and being affected by the feeding and damage and stuff.

And with those, you know, if if populations get real high, you could spray the plants. Just you'd wanna make sure you're not doing that when they're blooming. So you don't wanna wait till later in the year if you're gonna spray them, the soaps, oils, things like that.

I'd say lace bugs, that's definitely enemy number one for our azaleas. So when you are scouting, you are looking for those. So if you are watching us on YouTube, yeah, that picture that we popped in here, that's that's gonna be you're gonna have a wanted poster in your garden shed if you have azaleas, and that's what you're gonna be looking for to to prevent just an outbreak of of lace bugs occurring on your plant. I I I'm trying to think of I I think I've also encountered scale on azaleas, not to a too too much of a destructive degree, though. I think it's something you scrape off, but white fly, definitely.

But when you're when you have white fly out, I think out in the open landscape, it doesn't really affect that much. I I think they have enough natural predators and kinda things going on in the environment. It's when they come inside that it's a problem. So yeah. That oh, spider mites?

Yeah. Spider mites too would be another one I think I've seen on them before.

Yeah. And and going back to lace back and for those others too, a lot of times just to spray them off strong stream of water. Like, the adults probably come back on with the nymphs. If you knock those off, a lot of times they're not coming back. So spraying your plants off with water a few times can can can really help reduce those populations too if before you go that pesticide route if needed.

And what about caterpillars eating on the leaves? I've I've seen that not as I mean, if the damage is minimal, it's, you know, usually beneficial relationship. If it's out of control, then that's a different story. But are there pollinators that specifically use our native species, or are they supporting more generalist populations? Do you know?

It wouldn't surprise me if there's specialists on the off the top my head. I don't know. I didn't I didn't look into that. I didn't get that far in my research. But, you know, some of the the native ones, I I think, are probably gonna support more pollinators than maybe some of the introduced species.

But even the native the native ones to the Eastern US, there's really only one species we find in Illinois. So if they do have specialists, I'm not I don't know if they'd be here in most of Illinois.

K. I didn't mean to throw a curveball at you. I also didn't come across it in my research, and I thought, but they're native. I don't you would think that there would be some sort of beneficial pollinators. But anyways

We will figure that out in the future because it seems like azalea just got co opted by the horticultural industry, and no one really considered who's pollinating it yet. But I'm sure that research will will come up eventually if it hasn't already.

Like, for other problems, we kind of already mentioned. I think the most common ones people are gonna encounter are the the root rot, phytopthora root rot, and that's usually because your soils are too wet and the plants don't like it, they're stressed, and that pathogen's there. And it gets in there. And if your plants get that, just you're done. Pull them out.

Just try something different. And then the chlorosis, again, which is usually a a pH issue. Your pH is too high. Can't take up enough iron is typically what's causing that, and you get the chlorosis on there. So amending your soils, lowering that pH, doing a raised bed where you can maybe manage that pH a little better.

Or I did see some stuff talking about, you know, using the chelated iron on plants to help with that. But I guess I I would probably go a little more long term fix of trying to get your pH right so you're not having to spray your plants all the time.

Yeah. The I think there's a certain acidifying fertilizers you could use also just to assist with that over time.

Your acid loving. I think a lot of times even rhododendron fertilizer.

Yes. Or that. Yeah. It's, like, called holly tone or azalea tone, rhododendron tone. I'm making it up now tone.

So I just did a quick search for pollinators for azaleas. And from North Carolina state, there's some indication that butterfly wings are used to help pollinate because those anthers are sticking so far out of the flowers or so far away that they're not being pollinated by bees. This preliminary research that I just did right now, but it's fascinating. That's a unique and it does highlight the unique structure of the flowers having, you know, those anthers so far away from where, like, a lot of the smaller insects would be feeding. The size of a butterfly is so large that those wings are playing a part in it.

So still, more to come, but fascinating.

Right. Well, so we've we've talked about kind of where they came from, what are they, how to grow them, some of the problems they've had. Ken, you have a a list here of various native azalea species. And I I I kind of perused the list a little bit, and I've gone through the book that I have in front of me written by also Michael Derr about these particular ones. There's some interesting similarities to all these.

Don't Do you wanna go through the list, Ken? And and maybe folks, as you're listening or watching, you'll you'll pick up on I mean, there's definitely differences, but there's definitely something that ties it all together and calls these azaleas.

Yeah. I think we looked at the same book. So I think these are so. These are was there 10 of them here? I think these are the one the Azalea is native to North America, Eastern.

There some in the Pacific Northwest that I don't have on my list. I didn't get around looking those up. So I give we'll just go through I think it's alphabetically is what they have there. So Alabama azalea. This is rhododendron.

So this is zone seven to eight, some say six possibly. So this is probably a borderliner or part of Southern Illinois where we're drawing this. Four to six feet tall. It's got white flowers with a yellow blotch on the upper petal, and it is fragrant. So lemon scent to them.

And I don't know about you guys. Like, when I think Azalea, I don't think of scent. I don't think they've don't think of them as smelling. A lot of these native species have fragrant. Some of them don't, but but I think a good chunk of them are fragrant and usually described as very fragrant or very sweet smelling and, like, a very desirable smell to them.

Mhmm.

That was one of the items that I thought tied a lot of these together. The the fragrance, which we really hadn't discussed yet was like, who'd have thunk? Like, I I'm just used to the the hybridized ones where there's no odor at all. Oh, yes. Fragrance.

Continue, Ken. We've we've got one down.

And I think we mentioned this earlier, but all these native azaleas, at least that we're talking about today, are deciduous. So they'll drop on their leaves. For this particular one, Alabama azalea grows in dry can grow in grows in drier areas than most native, ones will, and it's native to Alabama and Georgia. So and I and I didn't look to see how easy it is to find these in the in the horticultural trade. So we may talk about some of these and may not be able to find them, but they do exist somewhere in the world.

Well, and this one, also in Southern areas where the the climate, allows, can be found in drier open woodlands and rocky sites. That soil moisture that we talked about earlier, this one might be a little more tolerant of drier conditions, which would be nice option.

So next one I had is the coast coastal or dwarf azalea, rhododendron atlanticum. That should give you a hint there. So this is zones. Most people say six to eight. There were some that say five, so this could be one that could grow in a good chunk of the state potentially.

This is a smaller one, two, three two to three feet tall and wide. Some references saying up to six feet, but that's kind of the exception to the rule there. White to light pink flowers that, again, are fragrant. And this is one is used a lot in breeding programs because of those fragrant flowers. Again, deciduous.

See here. This is no native to the coastal plain areas of New Jersey and Pennsylvania down to to Georgia. So probably one we could, if you wanted to, try here in Illinois. At least climate wise, should be okay. Florida azalea, so rhododendron.

Austrinum. So zone seven to nine, again, some references saying zone six. So maybe borderline there, maybe some of these may probably more protected areas for some of these maybe more questionable hardiness. Six to 10 feet tall. Probably just noted it has loose irregular branching, so maybe a little more open airy habit than some of these others.

Pale yellow to peach to orange to red. Again, fragrant flowers, blooming in clusters of eight to 15 flowers. And a lot of these, didn't mention these the other ones, but the the stamens go out protrude out really far well beyond the corolla or that flower. It almost looks like they've got, like, fake eyelashes. You just have these really long stamens sticking out of there.

And this species, they say they're two inches long, and the flowers themselves are about three quarters of an inch long, so they're sticking out quite a bit there, which would you know, with your butterflies, would make sense. That's how they would be being pollinate pollinated.

Well, I'll there's a note that says this one perhaps is one of the easiest natives to grow. Requires no pampering, which is encouraging.

Yes. And I will say looking at Missouri Botanical Garden, they say it's not reliably winter hardy in the St. Louis area. So plant it in a protected location, protected from strong winds. So

That's interesting. They're having a hard time with it. Okay.

So maybe more our friends in more Southern Illinois. Mhmm. They have a little more success with this one than than Central And Northern Illinois. And this one is native to North Florida, Southern Georgia, West To Southern Alabama, and Mississippi. Usually find it in in moist woods along streams.

So it probably had a little more moisture than some of these others. Then there's the flame azalea. So this is rhododendron clangiolecium. I have no idea if I'm saying these names right. So Sounds right to me.

Yeah.

Grows, zones five to seven. So, again, one we could probably grow here, if you get the other conditions right. Four to eight feet tall, but sometimes can get 10 to 15 feet tall, about an eight to 10 feet wide. So a little more a wider than taller plant here. Flower colors can range from yellow to orange to red, plus the name flame azalea.

But these are these are nonfragrant flowers on this one. Flowers are about two inches in diameter, and then it's kinda native to the the Southeastern US for this one. The piedmont or mountain azalea, so rhododendron kinescens, in zones five through nine, six to 10 feet tall. Shady conditions make it up to 10 to 15 feet. Try, reaching a little more if you have more dense shade on that.

Pink, sometimes white, again, fragrant flowers, on this one. So this is native to, moist woods, swamp margins along streams, North Carolina to Florida, West Of Tennessee, Arkansas, and Texas. Oconee, which is a river. I had to look what Oconee was. Our Piedmont Azalea is rhododendron flammium flammium, something like that.

Six to eight feet tall tall and wide. Again, flowers kinda range in color from yellow orange to orange to red. A lot of times, they'll a darker splotch on the upper lobe of those flowers. About one and three quarters inch across for the the flowers themselves. Again, large clusters, about 15 flowers per cluster, but they are not fragrant.

Alright. So the pinkster bloom azalea. I don't I don't know how I got that name. That one kinda I thought that name was interesting. Rhododendron paraclomoides.

So zones four to eight, sometimes nine. Not that that's important to us. Zone nine. Get grows two to six feet tall, sometimes up to 10 feet, but, again, that's kind of the exception to the rule there. Soft pink to white to lavender, slightly fragrant flowers on this one.

Again, they have those long curved stamens like pretty much all these other species do. And this one is native to moist wood, swamp margins, and open areas from Massachusetts, South to Carolina and Tennessee. So, you know, a a cold hardy one that would probably, you know, just zone wise, probably a little more successful in Illinois than some of these others. The Rochelle or early azalea, so rhododendron prunifolium. So zones four to eight.

Some references say down to zone three. Two to four to eight feet tall and wide. Some places say it gets up to 15 feet tall. Seems like a really big stretch from 48 to 15, but, again, probably more the the exception to the rule there. Pink fragrant, and this one everywhere I read noted it's kind of a clove like smell to the flowers on this one.

And this one, is native to Southern Quebec to Virginia, West to Missouri. So we do actually have this one is actually native to Illinois. In in Southern Illinois, Jackson, Union, and Alexander Counties are what I found referenced to. So if you wanna be, you know, a a native azalea purist, that's the one you're gonna plant in Illinois, but only if you live in those three counties. So but that one should be you know, we should be able to grow that even up in the Northern Illinois.

Hardiness wise should be fine because it's all the way up into Quebec. And it was one of one that's found is that it's one of the parents of the Northern Lights hybrids azaleas that University of Missouri Minnesota developed, so that would make sense. Let's see here. Two more here. So pink shell azalea, rhododendron vaseii.

So zones five to eight, some say four. It goes up to 10 up to 15 feet tall, 10 feet wide. Some places give it more five to 10 feet. So, again, maybe some variability there, but a large on the larger side there. Pink flowers on this one.

This one saw several notes that it's the foliage. It's got a red to burgundy foliage if it gets a little more sun, so can have some fall interest there. But it is native only to the mountains of North Carolina. So, you know, I'm not sure how well it would do here in Illinois. And then last one, swamp azalea.

So rhododendron viscosum viscosum. We'll go with that. Zones four to nine, potentially down to zone three, three to five feet tall, and maybe up to up to eight feet at times. But, again, the exceptions to rule there. Again, fragrance, musky, clove like aroma.

So I don't know I don't know if I'd like that or not, but white to pale pink flowers on this one. And this is the again, from from what I read, Missouri Botanical Garden. So this is a species of azaleas that is tolerant to moist soil wet soil conditions, including ones with somewhat poor drainage. It's native habitat to swampy lowland areas. Also tolerates periodic flooding but will not grow in soils where the roots are submerged in water.

And it is, you know, found in, swamps, bogs, stream margins, lowlands from Southwestern Maine to Northeastern Ohio, South to Florida, and Alabama. So this may be one I don't know. Maybe worth trying. You know, if you don't wanna amend your soils or build raised beds, this may be the one you wanna look at for the native species anyway.

Well done, Ken. But also, now I'm I just kept listening for zone five, which is what we are up here. He didn't give me a lot of options, which I knew was happening. But

You got a few options.

Couple. Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah.

I I had a question, though. I mean, Ken, you're what? We we've all changed hardiness zones. You're a solid zone six now. Yes.

It look like? And I'm marginal. Would you start growing more azaleas, you think?

Well, I'm running out of room in my yard.

Every time we buy every extra land

to grow azaleas. Every time we do one of these shows, I got more plants to plant. I mean, I go on to do some of these. Yeah. I would I would consider like, our backyard is pretty shaded.

I would consider putting some. And even, you know, along our back fence line, it's a little more it's raised up a little more. Like, I've lost some, like, ferns and stuff on there because I think it dries out too much, which may not be good for azaleas, but I think it's a little better draining back there. It dries out a little more.

Mhmm.

If I could find some of these some of the smaller ones, I would I think I haven't looked. I would probably try one or two. I've got some rhododendron rhododendrons back there that are doing fine. They've only been planted for a couple of years. But Yeah.

How about you, Emily? You think you would tempt fate by growing azaleas in your area up north?

I I would. I have seen those northern lights ones do well. In in a previous life, I was I did some landscape, and those we always cited, and those are doing okay. So I would definitely plant those. I appreciate you know, some of the some of them are limited in their bloom colors.

But if you are lucky enough to live in an area where you can grow these, the hybrids, there's a lot of color options. And they're bright and they're bold. Like, they're just, like, really kind of fluorescent a lot of times, which I think would look really, really cool in a landscape. Especially right now, I am in a lull in my landscape. I'm kind of in between things.

And so maybe I'll have to try it. It's just, you know, this is this is what we do. We see how much we can push push nature. So, yeah, I've always loved them. I have we went to the Smoky Mountains a couple of years ago.

You know, there's rhododendron primarily all over the place there. And we went too late, and I Ken, you and I were talking about this. Like, I just I have to get back there to see some of the blooms. Like, I it just seems magical to have carpets of, you know, rhododendron species. And and some of the azaleas, the flame azalea is one that is highlighted there.

So yeah. That was a lot of words to say, yeah. I want some azaleas too. Like, I just want all of the things we talk about all of the time like you, Ken. So

Chris, are you going to?

Well, of course, I am. I already got blueberries going gangbusters in my yard. So and I got a low pH naturally, I suppose. So I why not? Who who's who's gonna stop me besides, I don't know, maybe a sales ticket or something, but

Your wife.

That that might be the case too. Just time also. So I think the other thing I don't think we really have time to talk about all the kinda commercial Azaleas out there, but, you know, probably what folks in our neck of the woods might be exposed to are the Northern Light series. But probably the one that I hear about the most is the Encore Azalea series. So these are the evergreen non native species that have been hybridized that can put on a second flush of blooms later on in the growing season.

So

Sometimes third. I was reading sometimes a third a third flush depending on growing conditions.

Yep. How long your growing season is and all all of that. So they can actually form flower buds on the wood that same year and and initiate a a second or even third flush of of flowering. So I don't know if we would get two flower eggs in our neck of the woods, but, yay, you never know. But if you're down south, that's that's probably what you'll be running into the most, I would think, at the the nursery centers.

But but, again, I'm not down there in in the Southeastern US perusing the nurseries all the time. So who knows what all you have. You're able to get into your own backyards.

I was like, we need to take a trip. Research purposes.

That's what we'll call it. Yes. Research.

I I would say, you know, if if you're looking for Azaleas even in, you know, in Illinois, they're gonna be the hybrid or Asian species that we're finding. Yeah. Again, I've never really looked, but I don't think I've ever seen a native species of azalea. Just a straight species for sale or even cultivars of them.

Well, they are creeping into our neck of the woods. I even saw a crepe myrtle being sold down at a big box store in Quincy. So they they can survive our winters now. So they're not gonna turn into a giant tree. They're just gonna be a shrub, but they're you can put them in the ground.

Somewhat off topic, but still azaleas related. So, you know, the the masters at Augusta National, they're Mhmm. Famous for all the azaleas. From what I've read, most of those are are introduced species. They're not the native azaleas, which to me is kind of probably shouldn't be surprised by this, but you've got all these azaleas that are native to that part of the country.

All most of these species a good chunk of these species are native to Georgia. They they need planted all energy stuff. But

They love that green color

all the night long. Yeah. That's kind of a common story, though, is we don't always, like, appreciate the native things that we have. We're looking for, like, the others. Right?

Like, I think that might be evolving a bit, but there's you can hear those, like, kind of like anecdotes with with a variety of different native species throughout the whole like, the Midwest. Right? Like, some of our native species are wildly popular ornamental plants in Europe, and we don't use them. Mhmm. You know, in landscape, those are the wild the wild plants.

So it is unfortunate. But Just in some of

the reading I I did as well, it was really interesting to see the history of azalea, especially in the Southern US, How I mean, really, it's just, you know, you have a lot of money and you like plants, but they would create these just beautiful acres and acres of of gardens. And a lot of them were open to the public for even sometimes some of them still today. But there's it was very interesting to see that social dynamic also of, hey. I'm gonna spend a lot of money on this space, and I'm gonna let anybody come in and take a look. And a lot of them dealt with Azaleas kind of in, you know, last maybe around the turn of the century, a little before that.

Bring that back.

Right.

Let's Turn of the eighteenth to nineteenth century. I should

I guess I need to clarify.

We Me too. Us millennials. Mhmm.

Yep. My yeah. My kids would be like, oh, in the nineteen hundreds. And I was like, I was born in the '19 Yes.

Yes. Nineteenth to twentieth century. I'll get it right eventually. Yeah. Well, that was a lot of great information about azaleas, and we literally, I think, just scratched the surface.

I just have a little bit of azalea under my thumbnail. That's all we did. But it still was a deep dive, regardless of how you look at it. Well, the Good Growing podcast production of University of Illinois Extension edited this week by me, Enroth. Hey, Emily.

Thanks for helping us detox from trees this week as we progress from the higher plant forms of life to shrubs and then, well, whatever else we plan to talk about in the future. Thanks, Emily.

My pleasure. And my beloved trees are always gonna be my favorite, but I like them all. So I'm very happy to talk about azaleas or all of the other other things to grow because they add value too. Even if we can't grow them in my region, I wanna know about them.

I'd be jealous.

I know. I know. I'll be happy for you all who can. Greenhouse. Oh, hey.

There's a thought, Ken. Alright.

And, Ken, thanks for doing a a very good dive on our native species that that we have here in North America and all the other information you're able to uncover. So as always, thank you, Ken.

Thank you, Chris Enroth. Glad I could finally contribute more than a few sentences here and there.

And

let's do this again next week.

Oh, we shall do this again next week. We're gonna be talking about the three sisters guarding method, I think. I think we're gonna we're gonna dive into that topic. So a Native American kinda planning technique, you know, we'll we'll we'll discuss that and see how it works or doesn't always work all the time. And maybe there's more to the story.

Well, listeners, thank you for doing what you do best, that is listening. Or if you watch us on YouTube watching. And as always, keep on growing.

University of Illinois Extension.

Close the book. Forget everything I did. Fuck me all about azaleas.