Symptoms

• If your azalea blooms turn brown and mushy several days after blooming or if there are tiny white spots on the petals, you most likely have petal blight, a fungal infection caused by cool damp weather and the fungus called Ovulinia azalea. Petal blight only attacks the flowers and will not damage other parts of the plant.
  
  

Treatment

• Apply a fungicide to the buds as they begin to open. North Carolina State University suggests applying fungicide to azaleas if petal blight has been a problem in pervious years. Reapply the fungicide to the blooms if the weather is persistently cool and damp.
  
  

Tips

• The petal blight fungus lives in the dried blossoms that drops from the plants and remains in the soil and mulch. Limit reoccurrence of blight by removing and burning surface mulch from around azaleas three to four weeks before the plant blooms.