Azalea-judge

Giga

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Bought this guy a couple years ago and it has been just a test bed to make sure I can keep azaleas alive and thought I'd start a post. The leaves are much too large but I like it anyway:eek:

It's a Solomon judge and the flowers a bright pink. It's nothing special but not bad regardless

 

Joedes3

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Great job! When will you reduce the roots?
Joedes
 

edprocoat

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Giga, that has a hell of a trunk for an azalea! The rest should be easy.

ed
 

Giga

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Thanks, I hard pruned it this spring after flower started to fade and have kinda just trimmed to keep shape. The trunk is what caught my eye to as most big box store stuff is pretty twiggy. I plan on reducing the roots this spring and putting it in a pot. Its pretty root bound, so how aggressive can I be with the roots? Just some and put in a training pot or can I remove enough to put I to a nice pot? It has a nice matt of fine rroots on the top.
 

edprocoat

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Giga I have never heard of the "Judge" variety before. That's already a small pot and it looks healthy so in the spring it should be fine to do your root work.

ed
 

Giga

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Giga I have never heard of the "Judge" variety before. That's already a small pot and it looks healthy so in the spring it should be fine to do your root work.

ed

it's in a 5 gallon nursery pot and the roots go all the way to the bottom and there shooting out the holes. You think I should still be fine will cutting the bottom part of and then finding the nabari and keeping most the fine roots?

It's a "judge Solomon"-meant to say that :eek: it's a full sun, heat tolerate variant and seem to do well with cold as well as last year we had temps down in the teens for a couple weeks and it didn't skip a beat.
 

edprocoat

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it's in a 5 gallon nursery pot and the roots go all the way to the bottom and there shooting out the holes. You think I should still be fine will cutting the bottom part of and then finding the nabari and keeping most the fine roots?

It's a "judge Solomon"-meant to say that :eek: it's a full sun, heat tolerate variant and seem to do well with cold as well as last year we had temps down in the teens for a couple weeks and it didn't skip a beat.

What I meant by a "small pot" was that it looked to me as if the pot had already been cut in half? I was looking at the size of it and the lip of the pot looked cut. These handle rootwork well and I assume this variant would be no different.

ed
 

Cadillactaste

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I too thought the pot seemed cut. How deep is the pot now. Maybe someone who is familiar with azaleas can give you some advice on just how hard to cut them back come spring. If your wanting a ballpark idea of how much to prune and have success. Knowing the depth of substrate it is currently in might be helpful.

Nice trunk to that azalea...worth giving it a go for sure!
 

Giga

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all I did was cut the rim off the pot so I could see the trunk when I got it-it's just in a standard 5 gallon nursery pot which I think is about 12" deep
 

Adair M

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Giga,

You've done fine work so far. The challenge with azalea is to make a plant that is really a "bush" look like a tree.

To do this, the general approach is to reduce the elements that look "bushy", and enhance the elements that look like a tree.

Generally, this means a single trunk line. And, generally azalea are trained to look like a Pine Tree.

Assuming that's the way you want to go, what's the next step?

Azalea bud out well. I think you should pretty much remove all the existing branches, and prune down to a single trunk line. You'd create great taper. Cut the brsnches off flat. Do not use concave cutters. If anything, leave a slight bulge out. Clean up any roughness with a grafting knife. And seal each cut immediately with TopJin cut paste. The orange stuff. It takes a day to dry. Let it dry. Then, the next day, cover the TopJin with the putty cut paste.

When new buds break and grow out, you can wire them with aluminum wire out into horizonsal shapes.

Your leaf size is going to be an issue. Not much you can do about it. They'll reduce some, but probably not as much as you would like. The flowers will not reduce.
 

Mellow Mullet

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Giga,
Put some damp sphagnum moss on the top. It will keep it from drying out too much, encourage roots to grow close to the surface, and help hold the soil in place while watering. Good job on getting it in a pot, I know it is tough.
 

Giga

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Giga,

You've done fine work so far. The challenge with azalea is to make a plant that is really a "bush" look like a tree.

To do this, the general approach is to reduce the elements that look "bushy", and enhance the elements that look like a tree.

Generally, this means a single trunk line. And, generally azalea are trained to look like a Pine Tree.

Assuming that's the way you want to go, what's the next step?

Azalea bud out well. I think you should pretty much remove all the existing branches, and prune down to a single trunk line. You'd create great taper. Cut the brsnches off flat. Do not use concave cutters. If anything, leave a slight bulge out. Clean up any roughness with a grafting knife. And seal each cut immediately with TopJin cut paste. The orange stuff. It takes a day to dry. Let it dry. Then, the next day, cover the TopJin with the putty cut paste.

When new buds break and grow out, you can wire them with aluminum wire out into horizonsal shapes.

Your leaf size is going to be an issue. Not much you can do about it. They'll reduce some, but probably not as much as you would like. The flowers will not reduce.

Thanks and yeah I cut back hard last year and am still studying the tree to see what direction I want to take, this year was to get it into a pot.It'll never be an amazing bonsai due to the leaf size,unless I plan on growing it out, but it could be something none the less. I like this one just cuz it was nearly free and my first azalea 3 years ago. Tonight I'm gonna see where I want it to go. I only have the grey putty, but I will be ordering the orange stuff soon.


Giga,
Put some damp sphagnum moss on the top. It will keep it from drying out too much, encourage roots to grow close to the surface, and help hold the soil in place while watering. Good job on getting it in a pot, I know it is tough.

The weather has been cool and damp mostly here and once it heats up I'll put a thin layer of chopped spagnum moss. Now that I know I can keep azalea alive I'll be on the look out for something a little more amazing.
 

GrimLore

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That is not a bad plant at all - it just needs a lot more cut off. If you do not want to bare it right off the bat I would suggest taking off all of the lower branches. Myself I would use a fine saw like John Geanangel does. Most cutters crush the branches and a fine saw does not. I really must mention that they do not do go if they dry out at all so keep it on your water often list. Wind and sun will be an issue and water is the answer. Also know you cannot keep it soaked, but it must be damp. Many use a more organic mix but well draining for that reason. Nice plant, now the work begins!

Grimmy
 

Adair M

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Even a fine saw leaves rough edges.

I have a pair of Masakuni "root pruners" for azalea. They make a flat cut. There's even a special "reverse concave pruner" especially made for azalea. I don't own one, but ive used someone else's. Weird tool!

The main thing is to have that edge where the bark and csmbium is exposed to be very cleanly cut. And immediately sealed.
 

Eric Group

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it's in a 5 gallon nursery pot and the roots go all the way to the bottom and there shooting out the holes. You think I should still be fine will cutting the bottom part of and then finding the nabari and keeping most the fine roots?

It's a "judge Solomon"-meant to say that :eek: it's a full sun, heat tolerate variant and seem to do well with cold as well as last year we had temps down in the teens for a couple weeks and it didn't skip a beat.

On your root work, you have it backwards- Kathy Shaner advised us on an azalea Of mine she was working on the other day that you want to dig down and find your nebari FIRST. This is important for any repot, especially of a nursery tree like this one. They tend to just up- pot the trees from a 1 gallon to a 3.5 gallon to a 5 gallon... Each time heaping more soil around and ON TOP of the existing root mass... This can lead to a very deeply buried nebari, so if you go sawing the root mass in half THEN you look for the nebari, you could wind up with a cut above where all the roots are connected to the tree- IOW, a dead tree and a bunch of disconnected roots!... Or at the very least, you could wind up cutting off a LOT more of the viable root mass than you intended! This was demonstrated on the tree I had and the nebari was buried pretty deep... She also told a story about a beautiful old juniper she saw a guy repot once- he had recently purchased the tree I think and it was the first time he repotted... But he just grabbed a saw and dug into the root mass, sawing off the bottom portion... Only to realize the trunk went a lot deeper than he thought and he wound up with the tree trunk in one hand and ALL the roots on the floor! Oops!

Just be careful, and take your time, you should be fine...

Ha! Just saw the updated post- you have already repotted it! Well, hopefully that bit of info will be helpful for others, I found it to be a valuable lesson as she told the story.
 

Plantermunn

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Only to realize the trunk went a lot deeper than he thought and he wound up with the tree trunk in one hand and ALL the roots on the floor! Oops!

I nearly did that with my last tree. I would snip then see how it fit in the pot then onother snip. I finaly took a good look. I just hope it lives.
 

Mellow Mullet

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The leaves will reduce over time. Here is a picture I took today while cutting one back. The branch on the right is the one that I have in the pot, the one on the right is from one that is part of the landscaping.

John

DSC09857-1.jpg
 

sorce

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On your root work, you have it backwards- Kathy Shaner advised us on an azalea Of mine she was working on the other day that you want to dig down and find your nebari FIRST. This is important for any repot, especially of a nursery tree like this one. They tend to just up- pot the trees from a 1 gallon to a 3.5 gallon to a 5 gallon... Each time heaping more soil around and ON TOP of the existing root mass... This can lead to a very deeply buried nebari, so if you go sawing the root mass in half THEN you look for the nebari, you could wind up with a cut above where all the roots are connected to the tree- IOW, a dead tree and a bunch of disconnected roots!... Or at the very least, you could wind up cutting off a LOT more of the viable root mass than you intended! This was demonstrated on the tree I had and the nebari was buried pretty deep... She also told a story about a beautiful old juniper she saw a guy repot once- he had recently purchased the tree I think and it was the first time he repotted... But he just grabbed a saw and dug into the root mass, sawing off the bottom portion... Only to realize the trunk went a lot deeper than he thought and he wound up with the tree trunk in one hand and ALL the roots on the floor! Oops!

Just be careful, and take your time, you should be fine...

Ha! Just saw the updated post- you have already repotted it! Well, hopefully that bit of info will be helpful for others, I found it to be a valuable lesson as she told the story.

I was thinking of that while trying to find the Nebari on a burning Bush the other day.

Cut half the bottom off to make it easier to push through the top.
I must have dug 2 inches to find roots emerging from the trunk.

Almost cut more bottom, thought about this, and kept digging from the top! Whew! Ok Nebari.


Nice Giga!

Sorce
 
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