I wonder if the later (I think) Bloom-a-thons were bred to be more consistently hardy? There are many complaints all over the web about hardiness issues w/Encores. Did your 2 encores do well this winter? I had the orange one die for me some years ago at around 10F, so clearly it was nowhere near the zn 7 tag rating. (I had paid a lot for the plant at a local nursery, something like $40 for a trade 2 gallon. Rather than hold them to refunding my money, I just never shopped there again :-( )

My Encores did just fine last winter (I only have those two varieties) and we were at 0 numerous times. They were fairly well established plants and were in a fair amount of afternoon shade. Maybe my two varieties were just hardier?

Hoping the Bloom-a-thon Red will be at least as hardy.

Yes I do think some of them were hardier than others. It's a shame about the orange one...'Conleb' I think, because it would have been pretty cool looking even if it had only bloomed in spring. Off the top of my head I'm not aware of many evergreen azaleas that are a warm reddish-orange like that. Way more common is that kinda plasticky scarlet of 'Hershey's Red'. Some pictures show a slight purplish cast but I definitely didn't see that - digital cameras just screw some colors up. I have one from Marshy Point that is kinda similar but the flowers are smaller. 'Conleb' looked like a greenhouse azalea, and, alas, performs like one north of zn 8!