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Three out of the four Azalea bushes in the front of my house are "brown", or at least browner than everything around them. Do you have any ideas? Is something "going around"? Maybe they need fertilizer? Thank you for your help. Mike

Answer

From your picture, it looks like lace bug damage. If Azaleas are in full sun or afternoon sun, they become stressed...and insects look for stressed plants. You can keep the lace bugs at bay by keeping the azalea roots well mulched with leaf litter and/or mulch to keep the roots moist and cool.

Water the azaleas during summer dry spells because the azalea roots are very shallow and dry out very quickly which causes the plant to be stressed. Lace bugs do not harm or kill the plant but certainly make it look ugly.

Good Luck and thank you for your question.

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About Linda Lillie

Linda K. Lillie is the President of Sprigs & Twigs, Inc, the premier landscape design and maintenance, tree care, lawn care, stonework, and carpentry service provider in southeastern Connecticut since 1997. She is a graduate of Connecticut College in Botany, a Connecticut Master Gardener and a national award winning landscape designer for her landscape design and landscape installation work.

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