Thanks! That’s extremely helpful albeit a bit unfortunate as the local garden center where we bought it last year was touting it as a “very hardy” Azalea option for our cold Z5 winters. I suppose the claim isn’t technically “false” if the plant survives, even when the flower buds take a major hit.

I also have a sneaking suspicion that the “Karen” was possibly mislabeled since the flower color was a bit different from what I’ve seen on multiple examples of “Karen” online.

Anyhow, we were going to give a few of the Northern Lights series a shot this year in a more acidic area, so hopefully we’ll have better luck with those!

We were also thinking about trying “Stewartsonian”, as it has been recommended to us by a few friends also in Z5, but I can’t remember off the top of my head if that one is evergreen or deciduous.

Any thoughts on Stewartsonian in particular?

I planted some my first Northern Lights in February, and we had a couple more hard freezes after they were newly planted, but are now starting to bloom.

I think the entire series should be fine for Z5 since they were developed at the University of Minnesota.

Thanks: I'm not worried about the Northern Lights series...I'm just curious about Stewartsonian, which is not part of the Northern Lights series.

My Stewartsonian looked about like your Karen at winter's end and after multiple years of poor winter appearance, I removed it. Why grow something for its flowers and foliage when both look dreadful? I am colder than you however.

I grow a bunch from the Northern Lights series and all bloom beautifully, and some have nice autumn foliage as a bonus. Twigs are delicate enough that they pretty much aren't noticeable in winter. All are rock hardy here in central NH.

akamainegrower...I have a plaster repair question for you - This is an old thread question but I just came across it, I have the same issue. akamainegrower described it exactly. 1900's house, thick painted wallpaer over all the walls and ceilings. in some rooms I can pull off the loose layers in one easy tug and the rough sandy intact plaster is what'is left, often with a watered down looking paint color, if it weren't so old I would say it's a wallpaper prep of some sort since the paper peeled off so easily. I am wondering what are the best steps to go forward, I would like to repair the cracks etc. then apply a primer, and a layer of drywall compound to do a knockdown texture, the re-paint. Any suggestions? Sorry to jump in the garden area but I don't know how else to contact akamainegrower!

I would be happy to help, but I would much more comfortable with responding to a question posted on the Old House forum. Diverting threads to something completely unrelated to the op just leads to chaos.