What Type of Sun for Azaleas?
- Azaleas demand cool, partially shaded sites like the dappled sunlight under an overhanging tree. Of the many varieties of azaleas, some live with a large dose of sun better than others but, overall, the plant prefers to be ensconced in an area devoid of excessive, full-on sunshine and warm, drying winds. The bright azalea flowers live longer when the plant receives partial shade.
- Azaleas that receive regular, full blasts of sunshine are more susceptible to the azalea lace bug, Stephanitis pyrioides, a pest that lives and feeds on the underside of azalea leaves. This insect possesses a sort of lacy growth on its wings and throat, with a long, cream-colored body. The bug causes a bleached or silvery disfiguration of the plant, resulting in considerable aesthetic damage as it sucks cell contents from the tissues of the plant. Leaves may eventually completely dry and drop away.
- A large amount of morning sunshine -- after the azalea has suffered through a hard, overnight freeze -- often results in sunscald and other types of cold damage to the plant. Still, while a gardener must protect the azalea from an abundance of the sun's rays, a proper balance must be undertaken; minimal flowering and weak growth usually occurs when an azalea is the recipient of too little sunshine.
- Striking the proper balance of variable shade is as simple as making sure that the azalea is planted near a tree that sways back and forth in the breeze, providing sunshine one moment and shade the next. In areas where azaleas cannot be sheltered or sun and heat is regularly intense, the University of California Cooperative Exension service recommends the utilization of evergeen azaleas, a hybrid of the plant that thrives in full sun. They are sometimes referred to as sun azaleas.