a rhododendron .... no further ID without a pic of the flowers... ken

Thanks. After looking up rhododendron blooms, I know you are right! Looks like these plants prefer acidic soil, which we definitely don't have. I'll try adding some lime.

Lime does not acidify the soil, sulfur does. You may want remove whatever is wrapped around the base of the plant. Landscape fabric is bad for plants long term.

tj

Hold up!! Lime makes soil less acidic, not more so :-)) If you want to increase acidity, you need to add sulfur.

ETA: posting at the same time there, tj :-))

Your rhodie is one of the little leaf/lepedote rhododendrons, though with only the leaves it's difficult to ID more specifically.

Along with adding sulfur and removing landscape fabric and rubber/plastic mulch ring, give it (and the rest of the bed) a good layer of a couple of inches of organic mulch such shredded bark mulch or chopped leaves. Helps maintain even moisture, improves the soil as it breaks down, and weeds are easier to pull than those that grow in landscape cloth. Landscape cloth interferes with movement of air and water, roots grow into it, and there's no way for soil to improve over time when cut off from the surface mulch and organic matter.

Looks like one of the 'P.J.M.' selections. Needs a moist, cool, sandy acidic soil.

Thanks for all the helpful suggestions. I thought of lime because the previous homeowners told us to put lime on the maple tree in front of this bush if it started to turn yellow. Sounds like that wasn't the right advice. Yesterday I found a sack of soil acidifier in my old garden stuff so I'll try that. All of the flower beds here have rotten landscape fabric that I'll have to pull out. And the tree ring around my bush was something I threw around it this spring to try to kill out the mint plants that were growing all around it. Since I posted this question, I have cleaned up around the bush and hopefully dug out most of the mint roots. Need to get some mulch yet. Thanks to your help, I'll try to keep my little rhodie healthy.