Phytophthora root rot results from too much moisture/poor drainage plus high soil temperature. The azalea may have succumbed to this disease, but it may have been simply overwatering. (Dosing with neem oil probably did not help, either.) If the it was simple overwatering and if the plant is showing green cambium, it may well survive and put out new leaves. A good free draining mix for azaleas and rhododendons in pots is 1/3 peat and 2/3 conifer bark put through a 3/8 inch screen. Some sap wood will do no harm. Turface and granite grit shouldn't hurt anything, but are not really necessary, either.Keep moist but not wet and be patient.

I didn't take cuttings, but I did log the coordinates in my GPS and I'm adding them to my Google earth now. I dont think there is anything in the literature about rooting j. ashei. But generally juniperus is best in winter I think. The golden shoots look healthy and It's probably fair to say that all of this soil is equally nutrient deficient! And that's what's neat about it. J. ashei is an indestructible weed in this part of the country. It's just not much to look at. A more interesting form might have some horticultural value. I knew you would appreciate the pinyon Resin. The last time I posted photos I said I thought the tree I was looking at was more than 8 meters (whats in perry's book). But I think this photo settles it. For scale my truck is parked maybe 20 feet away from the tree and several feet higher. I'm bad at guessing height and distances, but that tree is probably around 40 feet tall.

P.S. Dear Ankraras, Puregrass is a kind of astroturf, and you are an idiot. Please keep your garbage off of here. Dear Jim, Thank-you for bringing up some of my favorite plants! How do you grow all this in Brooklyn? You are just one of those amazing New York gardeners. Watch out for those female Chinese Alianthus trees your neighbors probably specialize in! I agree with you. Osmanthus (Tea Olive) is pure apricot-plum. Could there be a little orange blossom yeast in Holly Osmanthus - I will have to smell and record this Fall. Dear Kevin, Aglaia (Chinese Pefume plant) and Murraya Panniculata where among my earliest horticultural successes as a boy in Middle School! They were both sold interchangeably as "Jasmine" with no other identification and reccomended for "Low Light" according to the plant tags, and for about $1 in Shopright, and H&L Green back in the day. "Low Light" was all that excited me in that phase of my development, because they could live in the interior spaces of my bedroom (already packed with spider plants and wandering jews demanding window space), whearas my favorite fragrant plant - the eastern red cedar - much to my dissapointment could not. And they did survive on my desk and on the bookshelf above my bed, along with ivy, creeping fig, sanseveria, and surprisingly aloe vera, the aglaia much more adaptable in these adverse conditions than the murraya. (It would be a few years before I discovered "true Jasmine fragrance", a Jasmine Sambac plant - again purchased as a foliage plant, without knowlege of the fragrance - and its amazing scent quite by accident. I've always thought of writing a tacky song in the style of Billy Joel's "Oh, What a Night" about the experience.) Alas, H&L Green is closed, and to see the prices on Aglaia and Murraya charged by retailers such as Loggees, considering what stalwart plants they have always proved to me, makes my head swim. But to return to the topic, Aglaia and Murraya are often confused, and not just because of the general incompetence of supermarket plant tags. Their foilage is very similar. When I would put my plants out for the summer, they did indeed bloom. Aglaia liked the shade and bloomed with little yellow balls, that smelled of lemon. Murraya on the other hand would not do a thing until it recieved some sun. Then it would bloom with little white flowers like orange blossom, and smelling like them too. The point is, I don't think Aglaia smells like orange blossom at all, but rather like perfumy lemon(fruit). Moringa Olifera (Miracle Plant) also looks like these two and is sometimes confused with them. Unlike Murraya and Aglaia, it stages a Victorian death scene the very moment you suggest to bring it anywhere near the interior of a house. It has foliage like the supermarket "Jasmines" above, requires full, full sun, and has white flowers that are fragrant in their own way. Best wishes, and Enjoy! Sincerely,

The leaves with the dead ends won't recover but with new growth you should get nice fresh leaves stacking on top of the old ones. Keep on growing this one until it pups. Then look after the pup which will grow thicker & larger leaves than the present one. You can then break up the one with the dead end leaves to use as leaf cuttings to give away or grow some babies to give away. An interesting thing with this one. Keep it in poor soil, often dry & barely fertilize and you will get a plant with the leaves very thick set upon each other. They'll remain quite short & stubby too. Do the opposite & the leaves will grow quite long with distinct gaps between the "stacks". Both forms are attractive. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.