Watering Pro Tips (Stasuki Azelea/Dawn Redwood)

[TooMuchAtOnce]

Hello all! I'm fairly new to Bonsai, although i have dabbled in it a few times in the past with little success. This time how ever I am a lot more invested. I started off with some Junipers from local nursery and they are doing very well. I then purchased a Dawn Redwood and a Azalea and started to run into problems. I haven't been watering on schedule. I've tried to be very vigilant of the Azalea because i know they can be tricky to keep. They place i bought it from gave me heads up these can be easily over watered and I've read countless forums on mistakes that can be made with watering habits. I've recently started the "chopstick method" to determine when to water. I had previously just a visual check and used my finger to check under top layer but the pot is so small its hard to check with out removing a bunch of soil. Does anyone have some pro-tips for watering Azaleas,especially during winter? Do my trees seem to be suffering from over watering? They are placed outside facing east where they get about 5 hours of morning sun with afternoon shade. They seemed to be doing perfectly fine when i brought them home not a single sing of withering leaves. Any advice is greatly appreciated. Botanical Names: Rhododendron Indicum & Metasequoia Glyptostroboides.

Also i have not used fertilizer on the Azalea but the Redwood has some slow release pellets in the soil. I'm hesitant to use fertilizer if they are not doing well. I've had these trees for about 3 weeks now.

 

[Shibui]

The burnt tips on the dawn redwood is probably from being too dry. It only takes a couple of hours for that to happen. Mine seem to like a lot of water and I doubt you could over water these even though they are conifers.
The leaves on the azalea appear to be silvery but the pics are not quite good enough to diagnose the problem. Looks like calcium deposits on the leaves which comes from hard water evaporating off the leaves and probably won't do any harm but doesn't look good. Silvery leaves on azalea can also mean azalea lace bug which can breed up real quick and seriously weaken the plant. Check the back of the leaves for signs of tiny bugs and treat if you have those.
Azaleas can be temperamental. Not only for watering. If they don't like your area, water, soil or a few other things there's little you can do to keep them alive. You will need to check your water. Azalea do not like alkaline conditions so you may need to balance acidity to keep them happy.
They do not like to be dry so I would err on the wet side rather than dry. It takes a long time to kill a tree from over watering but only a few hours if you under water.
So far both look OK.

 

[sorce]

Welcome to Crazy!

Sorce

 

[armetisius]

I am see a little wad of black growing medium around the base of the azalea. Is it properly planted in the granular mix or did they just slice the root ball and fill in around it with the granular mix? Poke around and see. It should be very easy to tell. Just rake back some of the granular mix and if you see a slab of the same mix that is around the base you will have to water entirely differently than if it were a consistent mix.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

I am see a little wad of black growing medium around the base of the azalea. Is it properly planted in the granular mix or did they just slice the root ball and fill in around it with the granular mix? Poke around and see. It should be very easy to tell. Just rake back some of the granular mix and if you see a slab of the same mix that is around the base you will have to water entirely differently than if it were a consistent mix.

Does look suspicious to me too. Good catch.
I’m not sure which Satsuki you have, but this is a photo of a R. Indicum leaves that are healthy as a comparison.

I’ve got a Dawn Redwood....loves regular water and misting. Prefers acid media.
Cheers
DSD sends