Withering azalea
HelenaM
Posts: 6
Hi all, I'm new to this forum and fairly new to gardening, so apologies in advance if I make any mistakes here 
The forums are great, I'm learning so much from everyone!
I bought an azalea in March, beautifully healthy and covered in bright pink flowers. I put it on my patio and it just shrivelled in a matter of days, all the flowers went brown and crispy and the leaves curled up and went a dark red patchy colour on the tips (some all the way through)
Having looked up the symptoms I thought it might have suffered from wind chill so I moved it to a more sheltered position. I've also since moved it into a bigger pot, filled with ericaceous compost and water it every day with tea water (a gardener advised doing this for acid-loving plants in the absence of a water butt)
New shoots are now coming though and even a couple of new flowers - but the new flowers have gone brown and crispy on the tips. I'm worried the leaves will do the same as soon as they grow. What am I doing wrong?!?!
Have posted a few pics, including one of the new blooms (last image). Any help or advice at all will be gratefully received!
Thanks, Helena
Posts
Hi HelenaM. It certainly looks like wind chill to me. Was the azalea outside in the garden centre or indoors - we have had some very cold nights. Azaleas will shortly be finishing flowering for this year so you will need to be patient for a little while.
Thanks for your posts both. I bought the plant at a plant fair so no idea how it was kept before I bought it unfortunately. There were certainly some very chilly nights for a couple of weeks after I bought it - however the last four weeks or so have been very warm indeed and the label describes the plant as fully hardy, so I'm perplexed as to why the new leaves and flowers are getting brown tips too - is it just still recovering from the initial trauma? If so is there anything I can do to help it on its way back to health?
In terms of potting, I repotted it only last week - I had planned to do it straight away as it really was too big for its pot, but I decided to leave it for a while after the initial upset. I'm worried now that I should have left it longer! I haven't been using any fertiliser, just watering it daily except when it rains (the teabags are a hint I was given to neutralise the tap water chemicals that acid-loving plants don't like).
Thanks again for your help, I really appreciate it very much. Any further advice on how to save this beautiful plant would be wonderful!
Helena
Most Rhodos and Azaleas are woodland plants and prefer a bit of shade. Ours are in flower now, some 5 feet tall been in the same pots for years. I never re-pot, I just weed the pots and top dress with ericaceous compost in spring. Plenty of water in pots, rain water, you must make sure it gets plenty of water after flowering, otherwise you will not get buds for next years flowering.
Thanks everyone. I'll put it in a shady, sheltered spot and leave it well alone save for watering. Fingers crossed it'll recover!