Time Wizard
Sapling
I live in southern California in the desert, zone 9. When spring came around I went down to Nuccio's and picked up about 16 satsuki azaleas, all different cultivars. They seemed to be doing fine up until about a month or so ago. The leaves on just about all of them are starting to turn brown and die and I can't figure out why. The first picture below is Eikan, the second is Kikusui. I'll refrain from posting any more pictures because they all look exactly the same, just varying severity of brown leaf tips. I have them all on the west side of my house where they get full sun from about 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM, then they're shaded by the neighbor's tree overhead. A couple months ago, however, I put up a 50% shade cloth, so lately they're getting 50% shade from 9 to 2. They are all on a bench up off the ground. The temperatures in summer here routinely get above 115 F, as evidenced by the screenshot below. I live about 2 hours north of Nuccio's, so I can't imagine the climate is the issue. They grow just fine over there.
I have about half of my satsukis in the original soil still in their 1 gal black plastic pots (such as the Eikan pictured). A handful I bare rooted and repotted in late spring into clay pots with about 70% kanuma, 15% shredded sphagnum moss, and 15% peat moss. These include Kimi Maru, Kaze, Ukigumo no Tsuki, and Green Glow. Yes, I am aware Green Glow is not a satsuki. These are all doing pretty well, only a few brown leaf tips except for Kaze which was doing pretty poorly even right after I repotted it. There's a few small buds on it, but I'm pretty sure that one's dead already. Another 4 of them I slipped potted about two weeks ago into either 3 gal black plastic pots or clay pots. These include Shinnyo no Hikari, the Kikusui pictured, Kongo no Hikari, and a fourth cultivar that's slipping my mind at the moment. They were slip potted into a mixture of about 60% peat moss and 40% pumice. These weren't doing too terribly until I slip potted them, then they all started turning brown.
I find that the satsukis in kanuma usually need to be watered about once a day. Most of the time, these will have the soil just barely dry on the top when I come home from work in the afternoon, so I water them. Sometimes, they'll still be just barely moist on top. The ones in their original pots/peat get watered about once every 3-5 days or so. I will wait for the soil to be dry on top, then I'll pick each one up and feel how light it is. If it's feeling pretty light, I'll water it. I've noticed that even when the soil becomes dry on top, it's still soaking wet below so I wait until it feels like a good amount of the water has evaporated until watering it again. The slip potted satsukis are a little too big and awkward to check by picking them up, so I go off of how dry the soil is on top. These go maybe an extra day before being watered again as compared to the 1 gal satsukis.
As for fertilizer, I have some bio gold nuggets on a few of the satsukis potted up in kanuma. I am using a more run of the mill rhododendron/azalea/camellia fertilizer for everything else, maybe a tablespoon or so on top of the soil of most of the rest. There's probably a couple of these that i haven't fertilized at all.
Please help me figure out why my satsukis are dying. If there is any other information that might be helpful, I will be happy to provide it.
I have about half of my satsukis in the original soil still in their 1 gal black plastic pots (such as the Eikan pictured). A handful I bare rooted and repotted in late spring into clay pots with about 70% kanuma, 15% shredded sphagnum moss, and 15% peat moss. These include Kimi Maru, Kaze, Ukigumo no Tsuki, and Green Glow. Yes, I am aware Green Glow is not a satsuki. These are all doing pretty well, only a few brown leaf tips except for Kaze which was doing pretty poorly even right after I repotted it. There's a few small buds on it, but I'm pretty sure that one's dead already. Another 4 of them I slipped potted about two weeks ago into either 3 gal black plastic pots or clay pots. These include Shinnyo no Hikari, the Kikusui pictured, Kongo no Hikari, and a fourth cultivar that's slipping my mind at the moment. They were slip potted into a mixture of about 60% peat moss and 40% pumice. These weren't doing too terribly until I slip potted them, then they all started turning brown.
I find that the satsukis in kanuma usually need to be watered about once a day. Most of the time, these will have the soil just barely dry on the top when I come home from work in the afternoon, so I water them. Sometimes, they'll still be just barely moist on top. The ones in their original pots/peat get watered about once every 3-5 days or so. I will wait for the soil to be dry on top, then I'll pick each one up and feel how light it is. If it's feeling pretty light, I'll water it. I've noticed that even when the soil becomes dry on top, it's still soaking wet below so I wait until it feels like a good amount of the water has evaporated until watering it again. The slip potted satsukis are a little too big and awkward to check by picking them up, so I go off of how dry the soil is on top. These go maybe an extra day before being watered again as compared to the 1 gal satsukis.
As for fertilizer, I have some bio gold nuggets on a few of the satsukis potted up in kanuma. I am using a more run of the mill rhododendron/azalea/camellia fertilizer for everything else, maybe a tablespoon or so on top of the soil of most of the rest. There's probably a couple of these that i haven't fertilized at all.
Please help me figure out why my satsukis are dying. If there is any other information that might be helpful, I will be happy to provide it.
