Timing (and tips) for chopping a landscape Azalea

[Deep Sea Diver]

Well ok now.... Here’s my advice. You can take it or leave it.

A couple thoughts. When digging up an azalea in the landscape it’s really important to clear all of the previous soil off. This avoids lot of issues with rot from the get go. It’s a key process. I know of a couple donated azaleas we’ve lost at the museum because of this issue....

As much as it might scare you it seems the best thing to do is to gently get the azalea back out of the container and shake off the kanuma and moss. Then get out the hose with a medium strong spray, turn that beauty over and use your chopsticks and water to ease get all the old media out.

At this point look closely at the bottom of your container and ensure you have lots of drain holes. Better more than less from the gitgo. If not locate your handy drill and let her fly.

Then repot the azalea with the kanuma and sphagnum mix, adding more kanuma to up your ratio to about 80 kanuma to 20 sphagnum max. Top off with a light layer of finely shredded sphagnum and mountain moss.... just sphagnum. I use local moss in my mix, but avoid the coarse star mosses.

Finally you have plenty of time to plan in my opinion. I’d wait a year perking up the roots growing your azalea out good and stron before cutting it back next year in late winter. Take cuttings in June ish as you may need them later.

Finally Remember azaleas are not big feeders. Jim at Nuccios says many people love their azaleas to death by over feeding and over watering them

cheers
DSD sends

 

[Einbrecher]

Definitely taking it, lol.

I'll see about new soil, as the box ate up a whole bag of the kanuma, so I'll need to order more.

Where do people actually get this moss from? In this thread and elsewhere I've heard what type of moss to get, but never where to buy it from, lol. The stuff I got from amazon doesn't look anything like what I see in the videos, and usually the stuff at garden centers I see (dunno if I'm just not looking hard enough) tends to be the bagged/dead stuff (or the same as what I linked above).

Also, any tips on how to flip/support the tree while working on roots and it's this large? The root mat is pretty dense and I raked it out best I could, but the whole thing is decently heavy and I'm nervous about snapping branches/roots as I manipulate it.

As for the container, there's quite a few holes poked in the bottom, and two larger ones with screen. Water runs out pretty quickly after I start adding it in, so I don't think drainage is necessarily the problem. I've got some strawberry plants in terra cotta pots that aren't drying out either, so I think it's more a humidity thing and the lack of sunlight. We're still bouncing around freezing so that's not really helping either.

There's those two branches growing straight up through everything I think I'll lose for sure, but my main concern is whether or not I've left too much up top compared to what the roots are down to. Usually when I see azalea chops it's down to the stump or way closer than what I did.

Yeah, I don't feed this very often. It gets kind of abused all things considered, which is interesting given all the "they're so delicate" stuff I've found when typically googling "azalea bonsai tips" and the like.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Not sure about changing the kanuma mix. If you are watering only once a week, perhaps wait until the next time you’d water or bit more and carefully extract the azalea, shaking off the roots. Carefully spread out the kanuma on a flat surface and don’t work it much the second time. We sometimes use heat lamps too.

You’ll likely need to trim the roots more when washing, so maybe less media.

The NZ Spaghnum moss you bought is exactly the same as I use. You can use mountain moss to with it, or mix in any decent dried moss. Jonas sells mountain moss here. https://store.bonsaitonight.com/products/mountain-moss

I get a number of decent types of moss from the tree trunks. fences and sidewalks where I live dry it, sieve it and mix all together.

Once the moss gets wet, over time it will start growing & will get green and spread. I’d advise against the garden shop moss”

It’s hit and miss. I’ve seen padded slings, blocking, wrapping trunk in toweling etc.... each tree is a bit different but you need to get the job done.

If you snap a branch, clean cut and seal.

Grow the tree out for a year and chop them if the tree survives. Get some other stock to work on this year

Not delicate, just different.

Cheers
DSD sends