indian azalea

order: ericales
family: ericaceae
genus: rhododendron
species: simsii
cultivar: unknown hybrid

First Story

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23 august 2012

Flowering March 2013.

This is an evergreen, frost tender azalea that can be perfectly kept indoor in a bright room in winter and moved outdoor in the summer. Huge bright crimson semi-double rosettes, 10cm across, petals with slightly undulated margins, are borne in clusters at terminals. Its foliage turns from lemon green to dark green and is somewhat downy.

I obtained this plant last year in October while it was in bloom. This I managed to keep for as long as three months. This year it bloomed earlier, in July. The flowers are bigger and brighter. If you want to enjoy its beautiful flowers longer, keep it real cool, protected from heavy rain and scotching sunlight. Slender branches tend to hang down after rain, because flowers are so huge that they retain a lot of water. Strong sunlight will make petal margins burn and flowers become unsightly.

This year I didn't keep the bloom for very long. This plant had been used in a group planting with four plants in a pot. At the time it was separated, it was completely out of shape. For now it is more important for me to improve its overall shape. I deadheaded the plant after a month of bloom so that it can spend the rest of the year on ramification. The goal is to have more flowers. Currently there are already new shoots coming out from the lower section. Rhododendron species do not usually require pruning to achieve a rounded shape.

Blooming in garden July 2012.

Watery flowers after rain.

The way it was, in a smaller pot, in 2011.

Update

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1 april 2015

out of shape albeit in bloom, november 2014.

My lovely azalea had grown so much that it was constantly blown over by wind. After it landed on my fuchsia during a storm and caused much damage to both plants, I decided it's time to repot. This time I opted a wide shallow pot. With this I think the chance for it to tip is highly unlikely. The missing branches caused the crown to appear out of shape. A couple of seasons of growth should remedy this.