In praise of encore azaleas

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]t my nursery I am often asked to suggest a plant for a particular location. ‘Can you name an evergreen plant that blooms profusely, has large, showy flowers, and thrives in the shade?’

This used to involve a lot of head-scratching… until the introduction of the beautiful Encore Azaleas. This patented grouping of flowering shrubs blooms up to three seasons a year. They thrive in the shade and don’t care a bit about extremes of summer heat and winter cold.

‘They begin their performance with the spring flowering season. Once this first act of blooming concludes, new shoots begin to grow and set buds,’ they write at www.encoreazalea.com.