Azalea, Pinxter

Description

Botanical Name:    Rhododendron canescens

Common Name:    Pinxter Azalea, Phlox Pink Azalea, Mountain Azalea, Wild Azalea, Honeysuckle Azalea, Piedmont Azalea, Sweet Azalea, Hoary Azalea, Southern Pinxterflower

Description:    This is one of our beautiful Florida native azaleas.

Pinxter azalea is a deciduous flowering shrub. It blooms in spring and occurs naturally in pine flatwoods, mesic hammocks, bay swamps, and floodplain and slope forests. This one is easy to grow in part sun, part shade, or shade in moist but well drained acidic soils. It likes protection from out hot afternoon sun. Morning sun/afternoon shade is perfect. If shaping is needed, do it asap after flowering so you don’t cut off next year’s flower buds. Please do not prune this into a square or round ball, let it grow to its full natural beauty.

Grows 10 – 15 feet tall and wide. Blooms show up before the leaves break dormancy. Pinxter azalea works well as a specimen plant, in a mass planting, or naturalistic landscape. Young plants may appear straggly but will fill in and spread out as they mature. It will not tolerate dense clay or poorly drained soil. It has shallow roots, so be sure to mulch around the root zone. Has moderate drought tolerance. I wouldn’t plant it in full all day sun in very dry soil. Will work in a rain garden as long as the water doesn’t stand for multiple days.

It’s a valuable early-season nectar plant that attracts a number of pollinators, including hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies. plant for the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly and the Azalea Caterpillar Moth.

Rabbit tolerant. Is not deer resistant.

Its showy pink/white/rose colored flowers are trumpet-shaped with noticeably protruding stamens and pistils. The fragrant flowers bloom in the spring before the leaves break dormancy.  Leaves are obovate, hairy, and alternately arranged. The leaves turn a burgundy red in the fall.

Not salt tolerant of inundation by salty or brackish water. Low to no tolerance of salty wind or direct salt spray.

This plant in the 3-gallon containers is 1.5 – 3 feet tall.

Plant Lore:  The genus name derives from the Greek words rhodo, which means rose, and dendron, meaning tree.  The specific epithet canescens means gray or off-white hairs referring to the hairs found on the undersides of the leaves.

Florida Hardiness Zones 8 – 9