azalea+browning leaves

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Chezca Hayward (Z8b-9a), CA(Zone 8b) Jul 09, 2009

I have a small azalea in a good sized pot, it's been doing pretty well- very healthy growth plus no bugs and fertilized once every two weeks with azalea food. The problem started two days ago when I started noticing that the older leaves are turning brown in some areas then completely die off... Very sporadic- one or two leaves here and there and not localized to a certain spot. What do you guys think is happening? I've had this plant for about 4 months now with no problems except for this recent one... Any ideas? What should I do? Thanks!

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Smokey_SC Piedmont, SC(Zone 7b) Jul 09, 2009

How often are you watering it?

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ecrane3 Dublin, CA(Zone 9a) Jul 09, 2009

I wonder if you're fertilizing it too much? Salt buildup in the soil or fertilizer burn can cause symptoms like that. Fertilizing every other week sounds a bit frequent to me, but I guess it depends on how much you're giving it each time. Or it could be some combination of heat/water/sun stress--we'd had such cool weather for so long and then all of a sudden had really hot temperatures, so that could have stressed the plant.

Post #6798510
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Chezca Hayward (Z8b-9a), CA(Zone 8b) Jul 09, 2009

I water it about once every 4 days. depends if the soil looks and feels overly dry. As for the fertilizer, i only use not even half of the recommended amount on the box.
I think you're right e, we did have a horrible heatwave and now our weather don't feel anything near to summer!

so what should I do or should I just let it be?

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ecrane3 Dublin, CA(Zone 9a) Jul 09, 2009

If it's just the heat then it should stop happening if the weather stays normal--but next time we have a heat wave you might consider moving it somewhere a little shadier and see if that helps. For the fertilizer, I'd read the package and see how often it tells you to apply it--if you're using half strength but applying it more than twice as often as you're supposed to that could still cause problems. And for the watering, I would never water based on soil looking dry, always feel down a couple inches, the top can often look dry even though it's still wet a few inches down. Or if it's gotten too dried out, sometimes you can feel like you watered it well but the potting mix didn't really soak up the water. so it'll have lots of dry areas down below the surface. If the container is small enough to lift you can usually learn to tell by weight when it's starting to dry out instead of getting your finger dirty every time.

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