How to Grow Summer-Blooming Azaleas

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David Epstein: We are here with Kathy Bergmann at Weston Nurseries and we ware going to be talking about Summer Azaleas, I have got—just want to hold one up here. They smell amazing.

Kathy Bergmann: They smell glorious.

David Epstein: Great plants, I have a few on my yard. A lot of people might think about Azaleas as blooming in the spring and now here we are into summer.

Kathy Bergmann: Right.

David Epstein: And we have all these different types of Azaleas blooming so what are the difference between the summer bloomers and the spring bloomers?

Kathy Bergmann: They are deciduous, they were an introduction from Weston Nurseries starting in the 40’s day are a cultivar of our very own Azaleas from around here so they are perfect for being right here and they bloom from June all the way through July.

David Epstein: When you say they are great for here, where is here?

Kathy Bergmann: They are at least zone five, most of them on zone four and lollipop down there and lemon drop or zone three.

David Epstein: So lollipop and lemon drop could be in northern sections of Vermont?

Kathy Bergmann: Absolutely.

David Epstein: And they will bloom and they will comeback every year?

Kathy Bergmann: Every year, they smell glorious, you can smell them from 10 feet away when the sun hits them and in the fall, they have great colors going on.

David Epstein: What type of conditions do these Azaleas like?

Kathy Bergmann: They can take sun shade but they really do love sun. They are very shallow rooted so we suggest that when you out them in your ants and pee to the soil so that they do not get dried out. Some of them do tend a little bit of mildew, put them in the sun with some air around tem and they would not and most insects do not care about them at all.

David Epstein: Tell me about some of the varieties and the colors and things like that?

Kathy Bergmann: One of my favorites is Golden Showers which are right here, it is starts out of these pink, it opens to color in then to pale yellow and when you lean over to see what is going on, you get this glorious vanilla fragrance from it. I love lollipop, I love ribbon candy which is right here with the white and pink ribbon candy stripes and a little yellow eye. Millennium is one of the later flower in once, it is kind of a roughly pinky red color, they are all great.

David Epstein: Well, thank you very much.

Kathy Bergmann: You are very welcome.

David Epstein: These are awesome. So we have talk a lot of summer Azaleas today, different from the spring ones, I like them so much, I bought a few, I am off to plant. I will see you next week here at growingwisdom.com.

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