I just had an azalea bloom this week. I think the seasons have gotten all
mixed up or something.

Fsplink wrote:

I just had an azalea bloom this week. I think the seasons have gotten all
mixed up or something.

This is called sporting. Some azaleas are very prone to this. A group
of azaleas called Encore Azaleas have been bred to bring out this trait
and are being sold for this quality. In general it is a product of
genics that are easily fooled and a weather pattern that tricks the
plant into breaking dormancy or thinking(?) that it was dormant when it
wasn't.

The upside is that you can enjoy a little color now. The downside is
that this bud will not open again and is lost from the spring display.

--
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Visit my Rhododendron and Azalea web pages at:
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Cheers, Steve Henning in Reading, PA USA http://home.earthlink.net/~rhodyman

In article ,
"Stephen M. Henning" wrote:

Fsplink wrote:

I just had an azalea bloom this week. I think the seasons have gotten all
mixed up or something.

This is called sporting. Some azaleas are very prone to this. A group
of azaleas called Encore Azaleas have been bred to bring out this trait
and are being sold for this quality. In general it is a product of
genics that are easily fooled and a weather pattern that tricks the
plant into breaking dormancy or thinking(?) that it was dormant when it
wasn't.

The upside is that you can enjoy a little color now. The downside is
that this bud will not open again and is lost from the spring display.


I have a large old evergreen rhody that "looks almost like" Lee's Dark
Purple, though I've never been certain what it is, & every year it
reblooms in Autumn. The rebloom is as extravagant as the original spring
bloom, & subtracts nothing from the following spring. The first photo on
this page shows it in October:
http://www.paghat.com/rhody.html
the third photo shows it in April.
A well-timed frost can ruin the Autumn rebloom by leaving many fat buds
only partially opened, but that has happened only once in the last four
years. I've read that this happens a lot with certain Ironclads when grown
farther south, but no one I've spoken to around here has one that does
this, so I feel uncommonly lucky.

I also have a Korean azalea that puts on a very tepid Autumn rebloom, but
only like three or five unexpected blossoms vs the shrub vanishing under
blossoms in spring.

-paghat

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/

how does one know what variety of Azalea's they have. home Depot is notorously
bad in describing some plants, and are of no help.