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GLT's Grow: Troubled Azeleas

Jeff Kramer
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Flickr via Creative Commons

It can be a great frustration to gardeners to plant two of the very same plant, only to watch one flourish and the other start to wither.  

  • Pat in Normal has an azalea that, unlike pat's other plant, is starting to fail.  While the first one is doing fine, the other, which has the very same conditions, is not.  Leaves are withering and Pat is very concerned for its future.
  • Patrick Murphy said it's not a good sign for the leaves to be doing that, and that by withering, they will not be able to provide energy for the plant to bounce back.
  • It could be root rot that's impacting pat's plant.
  • Murph said to gently check the roots to see if they're still viable. If there's light colored root fibers, that's a good sign.
  • Fire blight is also a possibility.  By then end of the summer, Pat should know if it's time to visit her favorite nursery to replace her azalea. 
Reporter, content producer and former All Things Considered host, Laura Kennedy is a native of the Midwest who occasionally affects an English accent just for the heck of it. Related to two U.S. presidents, Kennedy appalled her family by going into show business.