Rhododendrons and Relatives: ailing azalea, 1 by sempervirens

sempervirens wrote:
Thank you redchic for offering to help identify the problem.
This azalea was a mature shrub when I purchased the house 20 years ago. It could have been one of the original plantings when the house was built in the '40s.
I am a strictly organic gardener so it is not pesticide exposure (at least none that I applied) but after reading your post about the soap runoff from car washing I am wondering if the close by herb/fruit /flower garden might be the problem. I know the azalea bloomed the first year we lived there but I don't know if it had any problems. I did nothing other then mow the lawn and wait to find out what I did have growing that year.
The second year I started a herb garden a few feet away, removing all the grass and adding topsoil, sand and compost . I use kelp meal and fish emulsion as a fertilizer. The azalea had a severe infestation of mealy bugs and spider mites for many years after. I hand treated each one of those leaves with a Q-Tip and alcohol and sprayed off the spider mites with a hose daily.
It always blooms and gets new green leaves that slowly yellow and turn brown.
It is a little sunny now to get a good picture but I'll try to show you what I have around it. Two years ago the azalea looked so bad I pruned it severely and added grasses and meadow plants around it. It gets run off from the roof downspout. The grasses should be cut down by now but I thought it might be helpful to see it exactly as is.

This message was edited Apr 15, 2008 10:35 AM