If your house has a concrete foundation, the subtle leaching of lime from the block will only add to the slow death of your planting a dozen azaleas in clay soil. Sorry. I just thought you should know.

There are always other areas on your property where they can be planted and thus minimize the two pronged hurdle of excessive lime & clay soil.

Good luck

Ouch! Would it help if I told you that I am not planting them right next to the house?

Actually, my house faces the north and I have a porch on the front that is 8 feet wide by 20 feet long. The porch is bricked all the way down the front into the soil about a foot.

I was planning on planting them in front of the porch.

Do you still think I will have the same problem?

Thank you for your help! I plan on amending the whole bed with organic material and raising them up a bit. Hopefully this will help.

We have lots of clay soil here. Even thought the acid level is good and the soil minerals and nutrients are not as leached out as clays commonly found in the northern Texas Fortworth area, it is still common practice here to throurougly wet dry Sorghamn peat moss (may have spelled that wrong,) withwhich we make a 6 inch tall raised bed. We then plant the potted azaleas or Rhododendrons directly into that peat bed. Then we cover the bed with 3-4 inchs of acidic type mulch. The azaleas love this treatment, because the raised bed quickly drains away any standing water that the soggly clay would hold onto excessively long. The roots stay moist in the peat, but do not rot due to too much wet.

Using the raised bed techinque also prevents the water pooling affect that happens when a good soil planting bed is put directly in the clay.

It does not do any good to insert an area of well draining amended soil in a clay piece of land. Even though the soil in the amended area drains well, the draining off water will have no where to go once it hits the virgin clay soil. Excessive water can build up in these situations and create underground at root level pools that stress and cause problems that often kill plant's, shrub's and even tree's roots.

I planted eight azaleas last week & re-planted a day or so ago. They still look the same almost out of there. What can I do ? Please help me save MY AZALEAS!!!!!!

Lisa, they are very slow growing. If they don't look like they are dying, don't worry.

By the way it is sphagnum moss, not sorghamn.