Easy Gardener • Pat Howell
	Pruning the azaleas in your garden June, 2006

We hope you will be able to attend the free azalea pruning clinic
this month: June 18, 1 PM, Takoma Park Memorial Garden, directly across Md. Route 410 from the Takoma Park Municipal Building, at the intersection of Rte 410 and Maple Avenue.
Easy Gardener and Mike Welsh, both members of the Azalea Society and of the Takoma Horticultural Club, will demonstrate azalea pruning techniques and (attempt to) answer any questions you have about your shrubs and garden.
You do not need to live in Takoma Park, or even Silver Spring, to attend. There is no charge for this one-time event. We will meet even if it is raining. However, if there is lightning, the meeting will be cancelled. See Easy Gardener column, May, 2006 Takoma Park/Silver Spring Voice for information on pruning tools.

Why do we prune our azaleas?
• To shape and guide plant growth and to remove dead, repetitive and wayward branches.
• To rejuvenate.
• To create or to exhibit beautiful shape.
• To reduce size without altering beauty.
• To remove winter damage or correct for damage from fallen tree limbs (or errant squirrels aiming for the bird feeder).
• To remove sucker growth from previous bad cuts.
• To promote air circulation for better health.
• To allow for companion planting.

To achieve azaleas that resemble your neighbor’s consistently gorgeous chest-high shrubs, with blooms that are a knock-out, here is a plan of action:
• Find a site that will get just a little shade
• Give them a well-drained situation.
• Prepare the soil with rich, organic humus/leaf compost and some coarse sand (to get the well-drained situation).
• Select varieties that will grow to chest height.
• Mulch them with no more than 2 inches of pine fines.
• Never neglect watering the shrubs well in high summer and during prolonged droughts (any time of year).
• Wait 15 years.

This is a short list of some of the evergreen azaleas most commonly offered in the larger garden centers: Conversation Piece, Delaware Valley White, Dorothy Hayden, Elsie Lee, Girard Fuchsia, Girard Rose, Hershey Red, Hino Crimson, Hot Shot, Kaempo and Gumpo (dwarf, ground-hugging, late blooming), Macrantha, Mother’s Day, Nancy of Robin Hill, Pleasant White, and Stewartstonian.

We have not included mention of the glorious native, deciduous azaleas. And there may be azaleas in older Takoma Park and Silver Spring gardens which are no longer available in the local retail nurseries.
Fortunately for us, there is a wealth of information available through the Azalea Society of America: www.azaleas.org. The local chapter is known as the Brookside Gardens chapter: contact Mary Rutley, 301-933-2339.

Another helpful source of information about your azaleas can be found in Fred C. Galle’s book, Azaleas (Timber Press).

Pat Howell is a Takoma Park gardener and landscape designer/contractor. She is available for hand-holding and answering questions through Deephaven Landscapers.

No comments have been posted to this article.

Want to post a comment to this article? Click here.