Gardening : How to Get Azaleas to Rebloom Year After Year
Over the years I’ve received thousands of letters from indoor plant lovers asking for advice about this problem or that, and have always tried to answer as many as questions as I can.
Now, from time to time, I’ll be answering the questions of the most general interest here in these pages, so keep those cards and letters coming and let’s get growing!
QUESTION: Recently, I received a potted azalea as a gift. Although the leaves are still green and healthy, all the beautiful red flowers dried up and fell off. I know if you plant azaleas outdoors they’ll bloom year after year, but I live in an apartment and have no outdoor area. Is it possible to get this plant to flower again inside?
ANSWER: Yes, it’s possible to get azaleas to rebloom indoors, but it’s going to take just a bit more time and effort than cultivating an ordinary foliage plant.
The “recipe” for nurturing any flowering perennial (azaleas, geraniums, impatiens, hibiscus, etc.) back into bloom indoors is basically the same: Once the initial “store-bought” blooms fade and die, cut the plant back about half-way so as to give it a good, vigorous head start toward its next blooming period and then--and this is the most critical component in getting a flowering plant to rebloom--put the plant in a bright sunny window.
These plants will not rebloom without lots of bright sunlight. Keep the soil slightly moist and keep the humidity high with daily mistings, feed the plant once a week with a good commercial houseplant food, and pray a little. Your azalea should bloom for you every year for years to come.
Plant Not Dead; It Just Needs Water
Q: I recently bought a piggyback plant, brought it home, and put it in a bright, southern window. One day, about three weeks later, I came home from work and discovered it had quite suddenly completely wilted and died. What do you think happened? Do you suppose the plant was sick when I bought it?
A: I doubt it. One of the most common complaints I hear about piggybacks (Tolmiea menziesii) is their habit of drooping and appearing to be dead. Notice, I said appearing to be dead. Actually, that wilted, droopy piggyback is not dead at all--it’s simply begging to be watered.
Piggybacks (also sometimes referred to as pick-a-backs) are very temperamental about moisture. Let them be bone dry for just two or three days and they’ll slump over every time. It’s amazing, but if you water a droopy piggyback thoroughly and then wait a few hours, it’ll pop back up as good as new.
It can’t take too many resurrections, however, so keep the soil damp and it won’t happen in the first place. And I’d move it out of that southern window when the hot, hot summer comes. Too much light and heat can hasten that droopy syndrome. Try once more--piggybacks are beautiful and not that difficult to maintain.
