New to plants and bonsai: Azalea

[Melpomene]

Hi I'm Emi from Argentina and are totally new to bonsai. I was thinking of starting my learning journey and found this amazing community form wich I hope to learn a lot. I have an Azalea that was my late mother's so it has sentimental value, I wanted to share a picture of in the hopes someone more experienced can tell me if I can get her to health and later bonsai it.

Reading the forums I've learnt that azaleas need acidic soil so I think im going to change the soil and add acidic friendly substrates, also learnt that the brown color in the leaves may be due to over watering? but I think this plant is not over watered so maybe the roots are rotting? I dont know how to check that yet. Any advices that you can give me from looking the pictures will be very helpful I really want to save this plant and make it flourish. I will during the next days be watching john Geangel's channel on azaleas to develop my learning.

I thank you inmensely in advance,

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

It is spring in Argentina. The wilting leaves suggest this tree is in serious trouble. If the soil is moist, and the leaves are wilting, this means the roots are not functioning. Azalea never want to experience dry soil. They want uniform lightly moist soil. If this tree experienced a recent hard dry out, the drought can explain the damage to the roots. Keep it in bright shade, keep it moist and wait to see if it will repair its roots and begin growing. If it does, then you can repot later. It might already be dead. Time will tell.

 

[Melpomene]

It is spring in Argentina. The wilting leaves suggest this tree is in serious trouble. If the soil is moist, and the leaves are wilting, this means the roots are not functioning. Azalea never want to experience dry soil. They want uniform lightly moist soil. If this tree experienced a recent hard dry out, the drought can explain the damage to the roots. Keep it in bright shade, keep it moist and wait to see if it will repair its roots and begin growing. If it does, then you can repot later. It might already be dead. Time will tell.

Thank you for your message, I think that the tree indeed experienced a recent hard dry out, because the humidity the soil has in the pictures was the from water I poured just before I took them, and the soil was really dry before that. I hope it is that and can recompose. From what I understood, if indeed the plan recomposes, I should re pot it after blooming (that should be happening or happened short before because I found some semi dry flowers in the floor)

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

First, give it a few days or more to rehydrate in bright shade.

Plan essentially sounds good.