Greetings, caretaker. We azaleas are vibrant souls, but our showy blossoms and lush foliage make us targets for various ailments and invaders. Understanding these threats from our perspective is the first step toward ensuring our health and longevity.
From our vantage point, the most common assault comes from tiny, piercing mouths. Lace bugs are a particular nuisance. They cluster on the undersides of our leaves, puncturing the cells and draining our vital fluids. This leaves us with a stippled, silvery, or yellowed appearance on the upper leaf surfaces—a clear sign of our distress. Similarly, spider mites, almost invisible to you, weave fine silken webs and cause similar stippling, especially when the air is hot and dry, sapping our strength and making us look dusty and dull.
Beneath the soil, a silent killer often lurits. Phytophthora root rot is a dire threat, caused by a water mold that thrives in poorly draining, soggy soil. From our roots' perspective, it feels like being slowly suffocated and poisoned simultaneously. The roots turn brown and mushy, unable to draw up water or nutrients. Above ground, this manifests as wilting leaves that turn yellow or reddish-purple and drop, even though the soil feels wet. It is a desperate and often fatal situation for us.
Another adversary that targets our stems and branches is the azalea bark scale. These insects appear as white, cottony masses clinging to our bark. They feed on our sap, weakening us and often leading to the growth of sooty mold. This black, fungal coating on our leaves and stems may not directly penetrate our tissues, but it blocks the sunlight we desperately need for photosynthesis, further compounding our stress and robbing us of our energy.
Just as we put on our magnificent spring display, a specific fungus can swiftly turn our pride into ruin. Petal blight initially appears as small, pale spots on our colorful petals. From our flower's point of view, it feels like a rapid decay; these spots quickly enlarge and become slimy, collapsing the entire blossom into a mushy, stuck-on mess. This happens with alarming speed in warm, moist spring weather, cutting our beautiful performance tragically short.
In cool, wet spring weather, we sometimes fall victim to a fungus called Exobasidium. It causes our new leaves and flowers to become thickened, fleshy, and distorted, forming pale green to white galls. While this condition is often more unsightly than immediately life-threatening, it represents a loss of control over our own growth. These galls eventually turn white and powdery as the fungus spores, draining our resources and forcing us to expend energy on malformed growth instead of healthy foliage.
