Hi All,

I planted an Encore Azalea in my front yard early last December. I'm just north of Dallas, with the typical black clay soil, so I heavily amended it with compost (an acidified cotton burr compost) and expanded shale and covered everything with mulch after planting. I carefully covered it when it dropped below freezing and it rewarded me with lots of flowers in the spring. We got a lot of rain in the spring, I did a good job of keeping it watered for the first six months, then I went on vacation and it got hot and I pretty much assumed that it could handle itself like the rest of the plants in the yard. Then I noticed that the heat and lack of rain recently has left the azalea a bit parched looking, so I got some of the water-retaining crystals to mix around the rootball to help boost it over the summer. When I went to dig down to mix in the crystals, I realized that there weren't any roots coming out of the rootball. It's still the same size and shape as the pot I purchased it in. It's not rootbound, I made sure that there weren't any encircling roots when I planted it. I'm not a newbie when it comes to repotting and planting plants, I promise!

It's only been maybe a month that the azalea didn't get regular waterings, so I'm very hesitant to blame that on the lack of root growth. I'd really expected to find a ton of roots when I dug down, since it's been in the ground for eight months! What did I do wrong? Can it be saved?