Do you mean Azalea? Azalea is a rhododendron so it demands very acid soil. I doubt it would thrive in average soil.

For the price, I'd be willing to risk it. I'd be a little more worried about the zone hardiness for this particular variety though - more than I would be about soil type. Probably be a good idea to mulch them well.

Azaleas/rhododendrons of some type or another are pretty common from the Pacific Northwest to the Gulf states, through the South, the Mid-Atlantic, and on up through New England. We have some beautiful cold hardy types developed by the U of Minn that can withstand sustained cold to 40 below zero and some that will still set buds at temps below that. (Truth be told, these I have are much more interesting than the common fare every landscape in Maryland and Virginia had.) But that's just my opinion.

Could the plant referred to be Astelia "Silver Sword"? Here's a photo.

In z5 Pennsylvania this would need to be grown as a temperennial and either brought indoors over the winter or discarded (from what I've seen, it's hardy only in zone 8 or further south).

Should've Googled a bit further. There's a variegated azalea named "Silver Sword", also dicey on hardiness (rated to zones 6-9).

Thank you all for responding.

The planting zones maps say we are a zone 6 but we have some zone 5 winters so I usually stay on the safe side and go with zone 5. I could plant them close to the house and see if they survive. As duluthinbloomz4 said "for 4 bucks it will not be a great loss".

I will let you all know how it works out. I will be the test case. It is a pretty plant.

I bought one about five years ago. It was not happy with my garden for some reason, dropped leaves, discoloring, etc. so I gave it to a friend who had a more shady spot for it. It's still not spectacular but it is alive. She said it bloomed better this year.

I went back to HD this weekend and all of them were gone. There will be a lot of test gardens in PA. They had about 50 of them. I guess everybody thought like me that for 4.00 give it a try.

They are gallon size and look very healthy. As I said I will see how they perform. I will put one in some morning sun and one in deep shade in a protected spot against the house.