Guide to Azalea Planting and Care

Azaleas are breathtaking perennial shrubs that will stay around and beautify your space for decades if you're on point with planting and upkeep. Join our plants expert as he discusses the azaleas' likes and dislikes and growth habit, offering tips on finding the right spot, the planting process, watering, pruning and more.

Hi, everyone, this is step-by-step gardening from Spring Hill Nurseries and I'm sitting here, next to a young azalea. Now the reason we're going to look at a young azalea plant is, we're going to talk about how important it is to care for your azalea because this is a lifelong shrub. It is going to add beauty to your home for years to come so you want to take care of it properly. The most important thing is to make sure that the soil is right. It has to be acidic, about 5.5 pH and it should be well drained. Don't want to get the feet all wet of this azalea. And, of course, it likes the shade so pick a shady spot for your azalea. I recommend giving your azaleas a good mulching. The mulch will help protect the plant from extreme heat and extreme cold. If you pick an acidic mulch like something derived from pine, it will help give the plant the acidity that it needs. This is not the right time to prune your azalea, but I do want to give you some tips about it. It's spring time here and you shouldn't be pruning your azalea until after it's done blooming. That's going to be sometime in maybe mid to late summer. Now you want to start pruning on something that's dead or injured and then, you just want to prune it to keep a nice shape coz remember, these azaleas are going to last you a long time and you want to keep it really looking nice. So, that's it for azalea care. I'm Scott with Spring Hill Nurseries.