Electric Lights Double Pink Azalea

Fully double soft pink flowers pack the branches in early spring, each bloom carrying two to three times the petal count of a standard azalea. Rhododendron 'UMNAZ 493', sold as Electric Lights™ Double Pink, grows 6 to 7 feet tall and 4 to 5 feet wide in full sun to part sun, hardy from Zone 4 through Zone 7.

At six to seven feet this is the tallest in the series, usable as a screen or a back-of-border shrub.

For most of the last century, gardeners north of Zone 5 could grow an azalea but rarely see it flower, since the plant survived while the buds froze. Northern Lights changed that. Buds hardy to 30 below mean the display arrives every spring, not just after a mild winter. The series has grown to a dozen or so selections in white, pink, orange, red, and yellow, all deciduous, most of them fragrant, and all blooming in mid to late spring after the frost that catches earlier azaleas.

This is a deciduous azalea, so the leaves drop in fall. Acidic soil is necessary, roughly pH 4.5 to 6.0, with good drainage and steady moisture. Alkaline ground turns the foliage yellow. Mulch the shallow roots.