Talk to your GA county extension agent at 1-800-ASKUGA-1 Encores need at least 4 hours of sun to bloom. You will need to water a lot the first year, though. The Encore Azalea web site has information that will help: http://www.encoreazalea.com Click on the "Care Tips" link. Please also read the section at the bottom on Oklahoma and Texas. The part about clay soil may apply to you. You should be able to get milled pine bark (also sold as Soil Conditioner at garden centers)to work into the soil. You may be able to buy it in bulk. Make sure it has low wood content in the pine bark. Any wood content in the bark will rob nitrogen from the soil. If you buy it in bags, smell it when you open the bag. If there is a heavy turpentine odor, there is probably too much wood content. The more organic matter you can work into the soil the better water retention you will have. Over time the organic matter will break down, so the more you put in now, the longer your azaleas will last. You will also need to keep a thick layer of mulch to keep the sun from baking the moisture out of the dirt. The pine bark will be excellent for this also. Test the soil for proper pH. You may need to add sulfer. There is also a link for the Encore Collection. If you click on the flower you will get the height and spread of the various bushes. Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.encoreazalea.com

Customers are saying that many of the Encore Azalea varieties take several years to start having multiple flushes of bloom further north and even then the blooms are very sparse. All in all, they seem to be a southern plant doing best in Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. Further north regular azaleas with one flush of bloom do much better. Encore azaleas would be fun to try, but I wouldn't get massive numbers until you know you like them. Anyone in your area that sells them should have some customers they can use to show how well they do in your area through out the blooming season.

Razorback, they can be rather tricky to grow outside of their normal habitat. I see them in the hills on moist rich well drained soils often near creeks or under bluff overhangs. I have also seen and smelled them growing on top of a fairly dry outcrop under the boney shade of shortleaf pines and dry oaks. I think drainage is key, and the right amount of water when it's dry until well established. I would think that clay would be disasterous for them. I bought one from Mary Ann King, Pine Ridge Gardens last spring. I planted it in a new raised bed that I built last winter. It is filled entirely with home made compost, peat moss, municipal compost (I can't speak highly enough about this stuff!), and maybe some of that crappy bagged stuff sold at the big boxes as "organic humus" which is mostly sand with some bark products added for color. It has thrived in it's first growing season here. It held all of it's leaves, and put up a second wave of growth during late spring. It's got 2 flower buds for next year! I can't wait. We barely missed the Easter Freeze of aught seven here in Little Rock, so it didn't get burnt. This is my third native azalea. I have a cansecens in simular situation, but perhaps brighter, and an austrinum also planted last year. Some of the foliage got a bit of sunscald on it, but it's held up pretty well. I think it might also have a flower cluster bud for next spring. All in all, my luck with native azaleas has been spotty at best. I don't water enough during the dry endless days of summer on my boney west-face hillside. Perhaps I should enjoy them in their home grounds instead of attempting to grow them, but I just can't help myself. Some time in the next year or two I'm going to attempt a bog garden with some leftover pond liner. When I have a thriving umbrella magnolia I'll know that I have reached my limits.

Encores do require and will tolerate alot more sun than the traditional azaleas that bloom but once a year. I have had mine for six years now. They get full morning sun, afternoon shade. You need to know that mine, at least, bloom far less in the spring than in the late summer/autumn season. So much less, in fact, that I added some traditional azaleas to my landscape because, to me, spring means azaleas, and the Encores weren't doing it. That being said, they more than make up for it with their late blooms that I adore. Last year, they bloomed heavily from early August until our first killing frost in late November. You can't say that about very many shrubs. I have found that mine like a cup or so of Holly Tone in the spring right after they bloom. I rather think they might like another in the fall, but I have never been able to find out how to time that. I don't want to fertilize at the wrong time and cause them to lose their bloom buds. Still, it seems logical that a late feeding might help the spring show to be better. Anyone know?