On late-spring mountainsides, the azalea blooms before leafing out: branches crammed with flowers and not a green leaf in sight, from afar a mass of burning red spreading up the slope until the mountain seems washed in color.

The Whole Hill Reddens

Go up the hill in late spring and a whole slope suddenly turns red—the azalea has opened. Flowers crowd the branch tips, bloom against bloom, and the mountain shifts from green to red, as if someone had flung color over it.

The name “mirroring-the-hill red” (yingshanhong) comes from exactly this: it blooms until the hill itself is reflected red. The mountain people say that when it opens, spring has reached its bottom.

— Tang Dynasty · Li Bai, “Seeing Azalea Blooms in Xuancheng” —

In Shu I once heard the cuckoo bird;

in Xuancheng I now see the azalea bloom.

One Name for Bird and Flower

Dujuan is both a bird’s name and a flower’s name. The legend says the ancient king of Shu, Du Yu, became a cuckoo after death and wept blood that dyed the mountain flowers red; hence the blood-red bloom, and hence the name.

It is imagination, of course—yet the Chinese put two different beings into one name with a story to join them, so that seeing the flower recalls the bird, and hearing the bird recalls the flower. Plant and human memory are tied together this way.

It Insists on Acidic Soil

The azalea is a classic acid-loving plant: it prefers loose, humus-rich, mildly acidic soil and dreads lime and alkaline ground. Let the soil turn alkaline and the leaves yellow, growth stalls, and in severe cases the whole plant dies.

Watering has its own rule: northern tap water is on the alkaline side, and long use turns the soil alkaline—rainwater or settled water is better. Its fussiness is conditional; meet the conditions and it blooms more freely than almost anything.

• How to know it: Evergreen or semi-evergreen shrub; leaves ovate to lanceolate; flowers funnel-shaped, red, pink, white, purple, blooming March–May.
• Season: Flowering heaviest in late spring; a single plant may bloom two to three weeks; high-mountain kinds extend into early summer.
• Caution: Must have acidic soil; avoid lime and alkaline water; parts of the plant are toxic—never eat the flowers or leaves.

From Mountain Wild to Bonsai

Its fine branches, dense flowers, and tolerance of pruning make it a natural for bonsai and garden accents; horticulture has bred many cultivars, among them the round-blooming “western azaleas” of the flower market.

Plant a clump in the corner of the yard and it turns red by itself when spring comes. Its difference from other flowers: it asks nothing of you—only that the soil is right.

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Keywords: azalea · yingshanhong · acidic soil · spring mountain