The process of putting multiple plants into the same hole is called "Bapping". Named by Professor David McLean who taught the Landscape Design program at Broward College for decades. Bap (building a plant) is designed to produce a fuller plant or an interesting grouping of plants or trees.

As a designer, I've bapped everything from Crotons to Bismarck Palms, however most of the time I've used the same plants in one hole. The magic of the bap doesn't show itself, though until the plants mature, which could take many years.

I've planted many plants much closer together then the tags say too and I've also planted plants right up against each other to produce a fuller look. I've tried the native azaleas before but lost them due to not watering them enough while they were getting established. The native azaleas are pretty thin even once established and I think that the different types bloom at differnt times but I'm not sure. I say go for it and see what happens. Once established azaleas are pretty tough plants.

Keep in mind that there's a whole world of difference between planting too close and planting in the same hole. Planting too close will eventually cause the decline of all of the plants. Planting in the same hole will not as the roots will combine and merge the plants into one.

The botanical reasons for this phenomenon are complex and well beyond the scope of this post, but science will always prevail.

I plant everything too close because I don't have enough room and I like plants :)

If you plant two plants in the same hole it will work if they both have the same vigor. If one is stronger than the other it will take over and shade the other out. Give it a try. You could move them if one doesn't do well.

I think yellow and pink are pretty together. The combo reminds me of candy for some reason.

Planting closer than the recommended spacing is one of the tactics used for Naturalistic landscaping. In a 'traditional' garden, each plant is given its maximum potential to grow as well as it's chance to stand out and shine when in bloom. But in a Naturalistic bed, the idea is to let the plants intermix with each other. This is a reflection of wild areas where, as you walk, you invariably end up encountering a clump of plants that are just too dense to walk through and you have to find a way around them. But there is also, invariably, a way around them. My planting strategy is to cut recommended distances anywhere from a quarter to half the recommended distance, but I never go closer than half. I'm thinking... I'm hoping, this will give me the clumped look as the plants grow and fill in, but also gives me that room around the base of the plants to work the soil/mulch.

But I have had never given thought to putting two plants in the same hole and I'm glad to see there is such a strategy and a term to go with it: Bapping. I will have to read up on this more, but the idea seems pretty straight forward. So, thank you for that info fawnridge. Also, thank you to the rest of you for the support in giving this a go. I won't be getting my azaleas until Spring, so it's likely I won't see them bloom until the following Spring, but I don't want to put them through the stress of having to deal with winter temps since they won't have enough time to get their roots going before the temps drop even more. But I went to Mail Order Natives to look at the varieties again and I no longer see the White-Colored var. of the Pinxter Azalea. Either they removed the var. from the list or I imagined it being there in the first place. However, there is also R. alabamense, the Alabama Azalea. It's not near as common in Florida as the Pinxter and the Florida Azaleas, but it's natural range did extend into Florida and into zone 9, so I think I will be safe adding that to the mix. When I got my Wax Myrtles from Mail Order, they sent me a pot with 7 different plants in one pot. I managed to separate them and only lost one of those little plants. I'm hoping that when I order my azaleas I get the same thing, several smaller azaleas in the same pot. If I get one pot of each of the three types, I can put one tiny sapling from each into the same hole and let them grow together. According to one of my books, all three are 'vegetatively indistinguishable', so when not in bloom they should look like one bush. The trick will be when they bloom. If they all bloom at the same time, it will make for an interesting display of colors, apricot, white and pink. But if they bloom in some sort of succession... that will be it's own interest as it will look like a bush with a long, variable bloom season.

As for planting location, I think I have this figured out. Last summer I complained about how my idea to run my A/C's condensation pipe to my bird pool ended up keeping the pool perpetually over-flowing and resulted in an area too moist for the lantanas I had planted there. My immediate solution was to remove the pipe and let the lanatans recover. But now I'm thinking differently. Now I'm thinking this could be my chance to plant moisture loving plants that I had thought were beyond my grasp due to my location and soil type. With the constant overflow during the summer and the quick draining nature of my soil, moisture loving plants, like the azaleas, should be happy in that area. The flowering dogwood I had put in the area last spring definitely seemed to enjoy it and put on over a foot of growth during the summer. So I will either find a new home for the lantanas (the trailing type) or get rid of them all-together as I replace them with the azaleas and other moisture-loving plants.