Old Azalea Material

[Cmd5235]

My buddy just bought a new home and has been doing some work to remove existing landscape plantings. Most are yews, but there are (were) a few azaleas. Most were cut flush with the ground, but this one was ripped out a few weeks ago and left in a large pile of material. I got it for free, will see if it survives until the spring, and then try to make sense of whatever I can do with it. In the meantime, enjoy the trunk size. It’s estimated to be original to the house, which was built in 1950.

It looks like it started growing horizontal years ago, and all trunks are now lateral. If it survives I will try to separate a few out.

 

[Shibui]

Good luck with your new azalea. Garden renos are a great source of advanced material.
I have transplanted quite a few garden azaleas and the vast majority make it, even with radical root reduction and top pruning. I've dug them all months of the year and had good survival so I think yours has a good chance.

 

[Cmd5235]

There’s a bonsai in here somewhere, I’m just struggling to see it at the moment

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Boy! That’s a fun one! Got five old clumps working right now, but nothing this massive.

Here are my thoughts….

You have been doing a really great job with it so far. Would no cut back anymore. Just seal the ends of a lla cuts with Top Jin and for the ones over 1/4 when this dries, seal with green top cut paste. If need be to await it materials make a shallow fresh end cut when these arrive.

Then and see what develops on the trunks this year. Old trunks will lag the young growth budding. See image below from a clump, which may or may not be divided and or cut down in the future once it revives. (Didn’t have time to work these in spring as they were gifted to me just before vacation.)


What you might do this year is cut back some of those long barrel straight smaller trunks to at least 2-3 tufts of foliage and also seal the cuts. The goal would be to take these down as much as practical to grow out more tapered sections and broaden each sub composition.

Same for any smaller branches, but for these cut at 3-5 branchlet.

Think of each of these branches as a possible sub tree, individually styled to match the others in a final composition surrounding the major trunks. This way one can use any or all in the final composition, and air layer the excess off.

Just some thoughts

Cheers,
DSD sends