Mbunros 2020-25 azalea contest entry

[mbunro]

This is my entry. Paid 29 dollars just before Christmas. It's a Leopold Astrid.
Planning to remove any dead trunks and reduce live ones down to about 7
Other than trimming through autumn to stop spring flowering this will be all the work I do for the next 6 months.. will post updates

 

[Pitoon]

That would make a killer clump

 

[mbunro]

Yeah a clump is the plan..
Trunk reduction finished.
All remaining trunks will be shortened by at least half eventually. Then start building ramification from there.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Looks great. After a year or two of recovery, I would still bring it down even further, 5 trunks at the most. Possibly you could bring it down to just a twin trunk. Just my thought from a single photo. If you were to reduce the number of trunks, you would need to go slow so the base would have time to heal over to make a wide spread mounded trunk base.

 

[mbunro]

Looks great. After a year or two of recovery, I would still bring it down even further, 5 trunks at the most. Possibly you could bring it down to just a twin trunk. Just my thought from a single photo. If you were to reduce the number of trunks, you would need to go slow so the base would have time to heal over to make a wide spread mounded trunk base.

yeah i may yet reduce the number of trunks but work so far should produce the back budding i want. i think about 4 of the trunks you can see come from very low at the rear of the base so plan to leave a couple of those to add depth to the final design.
i think a year of recovery will be more than enough, they are pretty bulletproof where i live.

 

[mbunro]

Got a random early flower on this one... Earliest Iv seen azalea flowers on my benches is late April with the bulk of the flowering happening august-september so this is very early for me... Has some cool colour to it but started turning brown before it fully opened.. at least I know how big they are now though..

 

[Pitoon]

Any updates?

 

[mbunro]

Sorry for lack of updates, been a bit busy.
After the single early flower, I left it for about 2 weeks before removing the rest of the flower buds.
It's just been doing its thing since then.
It's the middle of winter here so will start thinking about the next steps late september.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Hi @mbunro
If you haven’t had a chance to yet, please to fill out the azalea media (substrate) poll.
My thanks and please disregard this note if you’ve already polled.
Cheers!
DSD sends

 

[Pitoon]

Spring is here and your azalea could be blooming (depending on your location) or starting to leaf out with this season’s flush……it’s time for updates!

I would also like to add at this time we have 3 prizes to award. Many thanks to @Forsoothe! and @Deep Sea Diver for donating. I am also donating a prize as well.

If you are no longer interested in continuing in the Azalea Contest, please let me know so we can close your thread, thanks.