Azaleas Needing Help

[kevinschoppe]

I planted four spring flowering azaleas under a redbud tree in a rasied bed this past March. The bed receives part sun and part shade throughout the day. Since about late summer, my azaleas have been slowly dying off. It begins by the leaves looking intensely droopy, almost as if it is water-deprived. I water, but nothing happens. Same results. I leave it alone and eventually the plant loses its leaves and and turns brown--death is iminant. I have lost one already, one on the way, and the other two just beginning to show irritation. As I watered this evening, I pulled back the mulch (a mixture of compost, cow manure, and mulch) to reveal the base of the azalea. Upon watering, a plethora of small bug and smiders began to emerge. Are these good spiders and bugs or detestable pests eating my azaleas? Help for I would really like to keep my plants. The redbud is fine, but I fear that my new Japenese Maple I will soon plant might succomb to the same fate as my nearby azaleas. Any suggestions? Would azalea food or high acid fertilizer help, or would a good bug spray help?

[Grey]

I don't think the bugs are a good sign, (air pockets around your roots maybe?) but let me ask another question: do the leaves fall off, or even though they are brown and dead, does the azalea keep holding onto them?

[grandpasrose]

Kevin, Have you dug up your dead miniature rose yet? Were there any bugs in it? Why I am asking, is you have lost several plants now, with all with similar symptoms, several roses, and now the azaleas, I wonder if you have an infestation of some sort. It just seems strange that so many of your plants are having this happen.
Can you describe the bugs that you saw?
VAL

[The Helpful Gardener]

The other possibility is that the bugs are symptom, not causal agents. If pill bugs are scurrying away, then they were eating rotting tissue, so the rot is the problem, not the bug. Spiders are feeding on somebody there, not the plant; sort of the same thing...

Scott

[Grey]

The reason I ask about the leaves is I lost a plant in an area of my old yard a few times... the leaves woud look droopy, I'd water... but it would still be droopy, eventually turn brown, but holding the leaves. Holding the leaves is a bad sign.

It turned out there was too much potash in that particular location.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Interesting... too much fertility of any type is not a big problem for us up here...