Azaleas

[ducks4you]

I know what you mean. You just can't plant flowers that won't make it through the winter, unless you want to winter them in the house. I have my limits. Geraniums are just so frickin easy that I love to pot them in and watch them flower by my upstairs windows all winter. They take it dry, wet, sunny, shady, just nothing below 32 degrees F. Calla lillies are beautiful but why do I want to dig them up every year, when I can plant and forget asiatic lillies, which multiply for me and survive really cold.
I have started buying perennials that are zone 4 and sometimes zone 3. I noticed that WalMart last year had clearance roses that just would not sell. Even the part time gardeners have started to read the labels and these were zone 10. 'O' WE have trouble keeping zone 6 plants alive all winter, now that real winters have returned.

 

[so lucky]

My azaleas are really struggling, didn't even bloom this year. They are protected by pine trees, and have heavy pine needle mulch. Maybe too heavy? Most of my attention is toward the stuff planted closer to the house. I need a fair weather clone. I am enough by myself in the winter, but good weather, not enough time or energy to get stuff done.

 

[thistlebloom]

My azaleas are really struggling, didn't even bloom this year. They are protected by pine trees, and have heavy pine needle mulch. Maybe too heavy? Most of my attention is toward the stuff planted closer to the house. I need a fair weather clone. I am enough by myself in the winter, but good weather, not enough time or energy to get stuff done.

So Lucky, if they are under pines it could be a soil moisture problem.
The rain shadow the pines cast (and deep mulch) as well as the trees feeder roots requiring more moisture may be keeping them from getting the water they need.

 

[Smart Red]

I am not sure you can get a pine needle mulch that is too heavy. Azaleas LOVE a cool moist soil and that mulch gives them all the best and acidic soil, too. But if you are concerned, try removing about half that thickness and send the rest to me. Mine are spring-blooming fools with little help from me.

While there is enough material to make another me, it inconveniently continues to lump all together on one body which means even less work gets done.

Thistle is correct about the pine trees taking up available moisture. Their roots are shallow like the azaleas and could be competing.

 

[Nyboy]

The deer might be eating the flower buds.

 

[Smart Red]

Or "the deer might be eating the flower buds."

Just because I don't have that problem doesn't mean others (including you) don't.

 

[thistlebloom]

I am not sure you can get a pine needle mulch that is too heavy. Azaleas LOVE a cool moist soil and that mulch gives them all the best and acidic soil, too. But if you are concerned, try removing about half that thickness and send the rest to me. Mine are spring-blooming fools with little help from me.

While there is enough material to make another me, it inconveniently continues to lump all together on one body which means even less work gets done.

Thistle is correct about the pine trees taking up available moisture. Their roots are shallow like the azaleas and could be competing.

Could be you don't have many pines Red, but I can tell you for sure that you can indeed get a pine needle mulch that is thick enough to keep rain from really soaking in.

It is generally assumed that pine needles left on soil lower the pH of the soil, but this is a persistent garden myth that won't go away.
Pine needles are acidic when green, but when they are dried out they have lost that acidity and it does nothing to the soils pH.
Look up some of the studies that Dr. Abigail Maynard has done in this area, she's written some papers on the different effects that mulch has on the soil, including the question of pine needles, oak or maple leaves increasing soil acidity.