My yard was flooded by a stormsurge during the last hurricane. My
azaleas were under 3-4 feet of sal****er for most of one day. Now the
leaves are turning brown. What care could I give them to salvage them,
if any?

In article . com,
"sago" wrote:

My yard was flooded by a stormsurge during the last hurricane. My
azaleas were under 3-4 feet of sal****er for most of one day. Now the
leaves are turning brown. What care could I give them to salvage them,
if any?

Wow!!!! I'd think about replacement with Rosa Rugosa (SP). Replace
with new azaleas next . But first I'd try to clean up their root
system with new soil. This is a major garden issue. 3 feet of ocean
water Whew!!


Look about and check with your neighbors on what survived .

Bill

--
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That's why you never find any Rhododendrons growing wild along the beaches.

Since they require acid soil in order to grow well, you must have known you
were taking a serious gamble growing them at all from the very beginning.

Try growing flowering shrubs tolerant of alkaline soil and salt instead.


"William Wagner" wrote in message
...
In article . com,
"sago" wrote:

My yard was flooded by a stormsurge during the last hurricane. My
azaleas were under 3-4 feet of sal****er for most of one day. Now the
leaves are turning brown. What care could I give them to salvage them,
if any?

Wow!!!! I'd think about replacement with Rosa Rugosa (SP). Replace
with new azaleas next . But first I'd try to clean up their root
system with new soil. This is a major garden issue. 3 feet of ocean
water Whew!!


Look about and check with your neighbors on what survived .

Bill

--
Garden Shade Zone 5 in a Japanese Jungle manner.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This may contain copyrighted (© ) material the use of
which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to
advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral,
ethical, and social justice issues, etc. It is believed that this
constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided
for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. This
material is distributed without profit.

In article . com, "sago"
wrote:

My yard was flooded by a stormsurge during the last hurricane. My
azaleas were under 3-4 feet of sal****er for most of one day. Now the
leaves are turning brown. What care could I give them to salvage them,
if any?

Rhododendrons/azaleas have low salt tolerance & it would've surprised me
if they did well in reach of salt-air breezes even without being deluged
in sal****er. You can try to "flush" the salt through the soil with deep
watering, & mulch with a quality finished organic compost, then wait to
see what survives. In the long run you may have to expect azaleas to be
killed by even moderate salt exposure, & you'll have to over time replace
dying shrubs with things that are salt tolerant, including for the South
the yaupon holly, wax myrtle, flowering apricot, figs, cherry laurel,
palms, Indian hawthorn, rosemary, jasmine, oleander, honeysuckles, many
others.

The azaleas that come closest to being salt tolerant are Satsuki, Gumpo, &
Indica cultivars. But in general where salt exposure is likely, azaleas
houldn't be planted.

-paghat the ratgirl
--
Get your Paghat the Ratgirl T-Shirt he
http://www.paghat.com/giftshop.html
"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to
liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot." -Thomas Jefferson

These azealeas are decades old. They were here when I bought the house
5 years ago. The storm surge was very unusual for this area. They
bloom profusely every year. It is sad to see them die.

Thanks. I have flushed and mulched. Now I must just wait and see.

"sago" wrote:

My yard was flooded by a stormsurge during the last hurricane. My
azaleas were under 3-4 feet of sal****er for most of one day. Now the
leaves are turning brown. What care could I give them to salvage them,

Probably a funeral. Azaleas and most "acid loving plants" are sodium
sensitive and salt usually kills them. I would think that totally
removing all soil and replacing with good clean soil in an elevated bed
might be the only hope of saving them, but not really much hope.

If they are already dead, I would not use the salt water contaminated
soil for azaleas. I would either use a raised bed with new soil or
containers with new soil.
--
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Visit my Rhododendron and Azalea web pages at:
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Cheers, Steve Henning in Reading, PA USA Zone 6

It's possible to leach the salts from the water by flooding it with
fresh water often.
If you can afford the water it's worth a try. We are talking laying
down the equivalent of a foot of rain a few times with a few days
drainage in between,
But it's also likely that having waited this long that your plants are
goners.
Ericacious plants are not salt tolerant at all. Azaleas are in that
group.
Similar plants will lead you into the same kind of heartbreak.

The message .com
from contains these words:

Ericacious plants are not salt tolerant at all. Azaleas are in that
group.

Well, that just ain't so. Much of west Scotland is acid peaty soil,
lashed by salty rain and salt-laden wind. Some of the commonest
naturalised plants are ericaceous. Heather and rhododendron ponticum
both thrive right down to the (salt)water edge here. Pieris, and
deciduous and evergreen azaleas do very well, and it's common for very
wind (and salt) swept gardens to have huge old deciduous azaleas as a
windbreak on the sea side. West Scotland's salt-laden coast is famous
for its rhododendron gardens .


Janet. (Scotland)

azaleas were under 3-4 feet of sal****er for most of one day.

wrote:

It's possible to leach the salts from the water by flooding it with
fresh water often.
If you can afford the water it's worth a try. We are talking laying
down the equivalent of a foot of rain a few times with a few days
drainage in between,
But it's also likely that having waited this long that your plants are
goners.
Ericacious plants are not salt tolerant at all. Azaleas are in that
group.
Similar plants will lead you into the same kind of heartbreak.

Azaleas are also susceptible to root rot, so having constantly wet roots
is not a good idea. It would be best to remove the plants from all soil
and repot, and then drench the soil in hopes of being able to use it in
the future.
--
Pardon my spam deterrent; send email to
Visit my Rhododendron and Azalea web pages at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~rhodyman/rhody.html
Also visit the Rhododendron and Azalea Bookstore at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~rhodyman/rhodybooks.html
Cheers, Steve Henning in Reading, PA USA Zone 6

Janet Baraclough wrote:

contains these words:
Ericacious plants are not salt tolerant at all. Azaleas are in that
group.

Well, that just ain't so. Much of west Scotland is acid peaty soil,
lashed by salty rain and salt-laden wind. Some of the commonest
naturalised plants are ericaceous. Heather and rhododendron ponticum
both thrive right down to the (salt)water edge here. Pieris, and
deciduous and evergreen azaleas do very well, and it's common for very
wind (and salt) swept gardens to have huge old deciduous azaleas as a
windbreak on the sea side. West Scotland's salt-laden coast is famous
for its rhododendron gardens .

I spent most of the month of May visiting Scotland's famous rhododendron
and azalea gardens and none grew rhododendrons nor azaleas near the open
sea or near the beaches. The rhododendron and azalea gardens I visited
we

Royal Botanic Garden of Edinburgh (not near the sea)

Glendoick Gardens, Perth (not near the sea)

Branklyn Garden (NT), Perth (not near the sea)

Inverewe Gardens (NT) (on Loch Ewe, a sal****er estuary, but the
rhododendrons and azaleas are either grown in walled gardens or on high
ground. In their official brochure they describe the "curse of the salt
spray")

Arduaine Gardens (NT), Inveraray (on a high slope overlooking the Sound
of Jura.)

Benmore Gardens (RBG), Benmore (a woodland setting not near the sea)

Crarae Gardens (NT), Inveraray (on the Crarae Burn (a fresh water creek)
not near the sea)

Brodick Castle & Gardens, Isle of Arran (on an island on the Firth of
Clyde, but it is situated high not near the sea)

Not many Scots consider ponticum a garden plant. The Scots have done
considerable research on the resistance of plants to the salt spray and
to limestone. They have found plants which can tolerate these notorious
enemies of rhododendrons and azaleas. However, there are many plants we
can grow in the USA that they don't grow because of their conditions.
You don't see many of our common plants over there. Surprisingly they
do raise many of our "iron clads" which are fairly tolerant of many
things.
--
Pardon my spam deterrent; send email to
Visit my Rhododendron and Azalea web pages at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~rhodyman/rhody.html
Also visit the Rhododendron and Azalea Bookstore at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~rhodyman/rhodybooks.html
Cheers, Steve Henning in Reading, PA USA Zone 6

It's been in the 90's and no recent rain.
Not exactly the time to go digging and potting an allready stressed
plant.
YMMV

Yeah and in 90 degree weather in the dog days of August it's not an
optimum time to dig and pot an allready stressed plant.

On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 20:06:06 GMT, "Cereus-validus......."
wrote:

That's why you never find any Rhododendrons growing wild along the beaches.

Take a trip to the Oregon coast sometime. Rhododentrons (R.
macrophylum) grows to about 40 feet tall along the caost, in the sand
with a lot of salt spray, and a lot of rain.