Azalea japonica Girards Hot Shot

Japanese Azalea Hot Shot offers a magnificent combination of geranium-red blooms and elegant white-edged foliage. The flowers might not be very big, but they are very abundant and appear quite early in spring on this small shrub. In winter, the leaves take on beautiful shades of purple. This old American variety, resistant to cold, is also a very dependable plant, which will liven up shady rock gardens or gaps underneath the canopy of tall rhododendrons.

The Hybrid Rhododendron Hot Shot, resulting from a cross between the 'Aladdin' and 'El Capitan' varieties, is an American variety developed by Peter E. Girard, around 1980. It is part of a series of particularly compact, hardy, evergreen hybrids that perform well in cool and humid temperate climates, with distinct seasons. This Girard's Hot Shot variety is said to withstand freezing temperatures down to around -26°C (-14.8°F) by the American Rhododendron Society.

'Hot Shot' is a modest-sized variety, well-branched, with a rounded habit that spreads somewhat with age. It reaches about 60-70 cm (23.6-27.6 in) in height and 90 cm (35.4 in) in spread by the age of 10. It flowers for about 3 weeks at the beginning of the Japanese Azalea season, usually in April. The 6.3 cm (2.5 in) diameter flowers with beautifully wavy edges are a wonderful, bright red with orange highlights and no trace of pink. They are funnel-shaped and are gathered in terminal clusters of 4 to 5. The evergreen foliage consists of small, single, elliptical leaves with smooth edges, arranged alternately on the branches. Throughout the summer, they are a dark green with an irregular creamy-white border. When the weather turns cold, they turn purple and the white border turns pink. Each leaf has a lifespan of 3 years. Azaleas and Rhododendrons have a shallow root system that always needs to be kept moist, but they also dislike waterlogged soil which would suffocate the roots.

Japanese azaleas thrive in cool climates with distinct winters, planted in humus-rich, acid soil, such as ericaceous soil. In these conditions, they are very beautiful evergreen shrubs for borders or pots, attractive all year round. They harmonise beautifully with heathers, Japanese maples, or their Chinese relatives that change colour with the seasons, as well as Japanese camellias and their graceful, often fragrant, autumn-flowering cousins, the Camellia sasanqua hybrids. This small, remarkably colourful Hot Shot variety, livens up the gaps under large ericaceous shrubs. It will also look wonderful in a large, cool, moist and shaded rockery or at the front of borders, but also on the terrace or balcony, in a large, carefully chosen pot, with suitable soil, and watered with lime-free water.