The one in the foreground. I would have needed an ID but someone identified it as azaleas on imgur right before I posted this.
It is dying. The reason I know this is another one not far away died last year. It is also not blooming like it’s sister plant. I do not know why it is dying however. I do not know anything about plants.
I would really like to save it if that’s possible. What can I do? Assume you’re talking to an idiot.
Go visit a local nursery and ask them. They are going to know what the typical problems with that variety of shrub in your area are. Azaleas will only thrive in certain climates (the further north you are, the less luck you are going to have).
I’m not an azalea expert, but can’t tell from the photo that there’s anything seriously wrong with the foreground shrub in the photo. Is it definitely the same variety as the adjacent blooming azalea? If not, it just may have a different bloom time.
Azaleas generally like a moist but well-draining soil that’s on the acid side (4.5-6 pH).
It may be difficult to tell with a photograph but the leaves seem much healthier looking and dense on the blooming one, to me, anyway. There’s also a significant amount of brown ones on the foreground ones that just easily flick away and fall off to the touch.
The flowering plant looks like an azalea. The foreground plant is some type of privet.
Fertilize it! That plant needs nitrogen.
Use a fertilizer for acid-loving plants like rhododendrons and blueberries, etc.
And rip that ground cloth out. Ground cloth is a lazy solution for lazy gardeners. It is probably blocking the rain, air, and any watering that you are doing from getting to the roots. Rip out the cloth and re-mulch with bark dust which will also help acidify the soil.
Ground cloth out. Mulch again. Water in some azalea fertilizer.
They’re the exact same plant. I’ve seen them both flower and usually it’s at nearly the same time. This one’s been flowering for a couple weeks. I’m just saying it’s an azalea because some random imgur person did. I could totally be wrong. Here’s some closeups. You can see the brown leaves on the sick one.
Do you have hard water? My garden is neutral/slightly acid, so I can grow some azaleas, but I am in a hard water areas, so I cannot water them with tap water.
In my experience, the usual suspect for a dying Azalea is root rot if the soil is not well draining. It can tolerate a bit of variation in soil pH or fertilizer but it cannot tolerate water.
I wouldn’t fertilize a stressed plant ; it’s a sure recipe for death.
How do you tell if it has root rot?
You can tell if the soil is waterlogged by digging down near but not into the root ball. If it’s soggy and smells dank it’s a bad sign.
If that’s the case, it may help to dig in some organic matter, and to have more of a raised bed if replacement plantings become necessary.
My apologies - that is much clearer in your additional pictures. As mentioned below, azaleas do not do well if over watered, which seems unlikely since the next plant is flourishing. I used to tend an azalea trail under a pine forest and sometimes, a plant just died.
That said : is there a sprinkler being over zealous at that plant, is it at the bottom of a slope, was any form of weedkiller applied near it, is there a dog on the premises?
The top looks flat. Did you prune it? In my experience it is very easy to overprune an azalea.
Yes, we prune both of them, lightly, in the fall. They really don’t grow that much over a yearly basis.
If you poke a stick or a longer digger around roots, you can tell if it is soggy down there. If the plant started going downhill after the rains, that’s a good sign too.
