Mine have wilted when they are in drought condition. Then they drop leaves. They do recover, however. I have cheyenne privets. Water with a soaker hose.

in z5 . everything is just getting going.. so i would give it another month or so ... did you have the extreme cold winter i had in my z5 ...??? if so .. i would probably.. without a pic.. write the damage off to that ... are yours deciduous in winter??? is the damage basically down to where you might suspect there was snow cover all winter.. say 1 foot off the ground... if so .. the damage above is surely winter damage ... ken

The pH makes a tremendous difference - you guys are further north then us in Chi town and get colder temps but it sounds like the soil is a bit lighter and the pH is in the correct range. You most likely also have more reliable snow cover then us as well. For us here in N. IL, my feeling is there's too many factors going against to have any notable success with azaleas & rhodies even the 'Northern Lights' series. The soil in general is very heavy black clay except along the very edge of Lake Michigan and certain other isolated pockets; it tends to be wet and gummy over the winter (a plant killer), along with unreliable snow cover (which is an insulator) and add to that a high pH and the added stress of cold temperatures usually results in near failure or marginal success. For Virtuosity, I've seen your place over in the Design forum - a new subdivision probably means you have not much in the way of topsoil so I'd recommend skipping some of these so called bargains from the box stores and taking a trip down in the spring to Natural Gardens for some colorful tough native shrubs or good cultivars. You'll pay more but you'll come away with expert advice from the staff and plants that will work for you in your environment. Limestone bedrock occurs naturally in many areas under the subsoil in N. IL and no amount of ammendments is going to permanently alter the existing pH to any significant degree.

As far as raising the beds goes, there's a sewer drain in the corner of my yard - and I'll be leaving an area for water to drain into that between the beds. This is basically how it currently drains, and I'll continue to direct the water in that fashion. I am not going to worry about fastigate/columnar trees shading shrubs below them. My backyard is "full full full" sun and all shrubs will do just fine. I don't have many other options for trees and going with an Armstrong will be one of the narrowest choices I can make. The shade will do little to the shrubs below. The sun will still hit the shrubs from multiple directions as it crosses over my house in a diagonal path and will provide early in the day and late at night sun to any shrubs that may be shaded just a bit. I'm not too concerned about this. Thanks for the "Gold" maple option... that looks great! Now where to find these trees?! I've looked around at local nursery catalogs and can't even find the "standard" Armstrong maple... how do you folks go about hunting down good stock? I'm not into buying plants online; I want to see and inspect what I'm buying in person. If it helps, I'm in zip code 60108 if anybody has a helpful search... Thanks.