Growing Azalea Plants

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Stan DeFreitas, Mr. Green Thumb for On Gardening. This plant is an Azalea, now we don't think of Azaleas always having this shiny a foliage, but this one is called a Madonna and why the Madonna? Because of the beautiful white blooms. Typically we think of blooms on Azaleas just in the early spring. Some of the varieties would bloom only around February, March or early April. But some of these varieties we call ever blooming that will bloom February, March, April, May, June, maybe even July. So we're getting a longer blooming period out of this particular plant. Now like all Azaleas it likes a nice peaty type soil. If we look at the soil, it's a nice peaty type organic soil and it's going to do better for you than some of the others that you might have. You don't want a sandy soil. Remember it wants a soil that's kind of well, organic-y. You can see it's nice and peaty and that means it's going to help hold some of those nutrients. You don't want a lot of yellow leaves and you don't want an iron deficiency. So make sure you plant it in some good Canadian peat, Michigan peat and also if you need to add some iron to it. Maybe Ironite or you can add some sulfur, soil will set a fire to make the soil more acid. You'll have great results with Azaleas. For On Gardening I'm Stan DeFreites, Mr. Green Thumb."