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  • Amateur Gardening

    A Gardener’s Miscellany

    Dec 01, 2020 6 minutes

    This week it’s: Houseplant azaleas for Christmas

    Forget poinsettias and cyclamen: this Christmas, you should try an indoor azalea

    IN the 1970s and ’80s, at Christmas-time, there were three main flowering pot plants for sale. Garden centres – and high-street shops like Woolworths – sold poinsettias, cyclamen, and (the subject of this week’s Miscellany) potted azaleas, by the million. This triumvirate of pot plants would mean ‘Christmas’ every bit as much as the tree, the mistletoe and he boughs of ivy! But, for me, azaleas were the stars of the show – sumptuous blooms on plants that were easy to keep going from year to year (the poinsettias and cyclamen were, for me at least, tricky to make look good a second year). So, let’s get into some azalea detail!

    These houseplant azaleas are often sold by florists, which is why they’re sometimes referred to as ‘florist’s azaleas’.

    Get the name right!

    TECHNICALLY, all azaleas (potted plants and spring-flowering garden shrubs) now come under the name rhododendron, but

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