Big Honkin’ Azalea

[yashu]

I was just gifted this 45 year old azalea from my MIL. She wanted something new in the corner spot in her garden and offered me the azalea if I would move one of her hydrangeas to it’s former space.

It just finished flowering so I figure it’s the second best time to collect these. Unfortunately I used all my kanuma for this season and there is no place close by to procure it.

Photo from earlier this spring.





Flowers are a nice orangey-salmon

I broke a pretty stout shovel getting it out… weighs a freaking ton!

 

[yashu]

Ive potted it in a mix of the field soil it was in and some miracle grow potting soil because… well, that’s what I had. I’m hoping @Deep Sea Diver can chime in and tell me if this is a horrible idea and I should try to somehow fix it.

The nebari is massive. This is immediately post potting.


The plant itself is one of the bigger trees I have


I’ve cleaned up a few branches I know I’m definitely not going to use and the plans already has a predetermined front as the angle shown really flatters the nebari and trunk areas. There are way too many trunks and I’d be interested in hearing ideas and what people think are the trunks to dispose of and future potting angles and whatnot. There’s not really any way I see to do a traditional azalea bonsai but there is definitely some very interesting possibilities. The following are as the tree sits now, cleaned up a bit but no big decisions made.

 

[Bonsai Forest]

I like the flowers and size overall but wonder how many days the soil system will stay wet after watering

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Nice long term project tree! Got 5 last April but with no foliage. All are flourishing right now. We put them on the ground and covered the roots with 100% bark.

Here are some thoughts.

First priority- get the tree healthy through the winter.

Media…. Not the best idea, but ok for a short stopgap. Very short imh, would change it out soon as possible for least damage. Best intermediate (inexpensive) media roughly 65% small fir bark, 15% peat, 15% field soil 5% manure. Best quick and dirty 100% bark. You know our thoughts on best long term media, if not PM me.

Pot - way too small and too dry clay. (Looks like terracotta). A big pot with the roots spread out as far as possible is best. Anderson flat, wood box 6” tall.

Roots - don’t know how far the roots were trimmed, but if the reductions were substantial the foliage may need to ne t rimmed back and cut site sealed properly.

Long term - some great possibilities given all works well.. Can’t tell, but may be possible to split trunk if desired. If roots are intact and tree responds well would think about some cutbacks of the thicker branches to inner green later this fall. Make all cuts flush… in two steps. Please double seal. First Top Jin, let it dry for two days until hard, then Green top cut putty second.

Styling older yamadori azaleas are just getting into my wheelhouse. Can keep them alive fairly easily, but the Nutter who is really experienced on this topic is @Shibui. Would be a great resource.

 

[Joe Dupre']

Nice find! A little advice from someone that designs trees a bit differently from most: Don't try to torture this tree into a "perfect" classic bonsai. Let it get healthy and bush out and see what IT wants to be. It's got good bones and good nebari. Just let the tree decide its fate....... with a little help from your, of course.

 

[Shibui]

I have found that shaking/scraping as much of the garden soil out of the roots as is easily feasible them potting into my usual bonsai mix works here. I don't use kanuma. My preferred mix is aged 70 pine bark + 30 coarse sand and azaleas seem to be Ok in that.
I generally reduce roots substantially at collection to fit into smallish pots but I don't think that's critical to transplant survival.
Trunks are cut back substantially at collection. Like you have, I completely remove entire trunks that obviously do not fit any possible design. After that I chop over long trunks and branches. Sometimes that means collected azaleas lose all the foliage but that does not seem to affect survival. They just flush out masses of new buds from the remaining bare wood.
While retaining foliage is probably preferrable, I know that harder chops are possible with azalea.
My collected azaleas then go into semi shade and are watered regularly for the first year until I can see they will survive the transplant.

Garden soil in pots is never a great idea which is why I try to remove a much as possible from the roots before potting up. But, given the slightly deeper terracotta pot I would say the garden soil/potting soil mix will probably be OK for the first year or so as the wettest spots will be way down away from most of the azalea roots and the terracotta will help dry the soil anyway. You should definitely monitor soil moisture and change watering schedules to suit the soil, pot and plant though instead of just watering this when you do all the others.

It is not possible to give accurate styling advice from internet pictures as I can't accurately see which direction many of the branches and trunks are heading.
I can see some big picture factors though:
Main trunk leans strongly left but several strong branches growing right contradict the main flow - remove or reduce the strong right side. The biggest branch seems a bit too thick to remove completely so shorten and develop a small foliage mass low down to the right.
I would consider trying to emphasise the flow to the left with strong branches and masses of foliage out that side. see virt for possible idea.

I can't make out where the main trunk heads - forward or backward in there or which branches are well placed on the trunk to be used in this design.
You will definitely need to ground truth this possible plan to confirm it will work with the trunk and the branches you have.

Apart from removing some redundant trunks I would NOT be putting this into action now. Let the tree recover and adjust to the pot for at least a year. Sometimes they seem to recover slowly and I've had some that took more than 2 years to get going after collection.

I do like the size and flow of the main trunk. Hope this encourages others to look out for advanced garden azaleas. I know there are a lot down here that get scrapped every year as homes are modified and gardens renovated. Keep eyes peeled for building demolitions, house extensions, garden renovations, especially soon after an older home is sold and reach out to the owner/developer/builder to get hold of suitable garden plants.

Look forward to updates as things happen.
Good luck

 

[yashu]

Thanks @Deep Sea Diver and thanks so much @Shibui for taking some time to give me all that information!

I’m going to head to the garden store today to get some components to create some better soil as suggested. This was just collected and it has been raining lightly since yesterday so I’m assuming I can’t really do much more harm since nothing has had time to begin settling in.

The root ball was very compact so I was able to collect about 80% of the total roots. Is there any benefit or is it a harmful to wash the roots at this point? I hosed off the very top of the root ball to get a look at the trunk and nebari but otherwise I left most field soil on the plant as I was not sure what action would be more conducive to survival.

 

[Paradox]

Pumice also works for Azalea if you don't have kanuma.
Could mix that with bark for the time being of you have it.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Should be no issue gently rootwashing the azalea. Never tried sand or pumice in the bark, yet have used about 70% bark : 30% perlite as a media, essentially creating a rough seedling mix. Certainly there is more than one way to create a decent azalea media.

Reason for spreading out roots is to enhance potential development of the nebari which imho, could use an improvement. Especially if the eventual design ends up being is large-ish.

When we were gifted a half dozen yardadori azaleas late April, days before we left on a diving trip to Indonesia, they were virtually bare. All but one, which was previously damaged, are pushing out vigorous growth just as @Shibui said they would.



In mostly bright shade now. Many of those trunks will be reduced more as soon as we have time.

Cheers
DSD sends

 

[Glaucus]

If you dig it up, you can see how large/small the root ball is. When you put it in an ordinary pot (not a bonsai pot), you can easily see how much more space you should provide based on the size of the rootball.
This extra space gives room for the roots to grow. Now this is an old plant so I am not sure how large a root system it will grow in a couple of years. It may be it can be quite slow starting out. If it were a younger plant, you could uppot it every year.
When you do not overpot, you can use a grow medium that stays pretty wet. If it hasn't got a lot of roots and you put it in a larger pot where it will stay for a couple of years, then use a much coarser mix.
I have always added perlite to peat and that works well. But azalea nurseries grow them in 100% peat. Others use 100% shredded pine. When I repot azaleas with quite wet root systems, I always wonder if adding some coarse sand would be great. But then again, more perlite is in that case is probably better.

There is no substitute for size or age. I would just keep all these trunks as they are and aim to create foliage pads on them. I don't think there's a point cutting something like this back very hard. Unless you have a bunch of these or you want specifically run a 15+ year growing program.

 

[RJG2]

I've got a couple spare Anderson flats if you need @yashu.

(You know, if a two hour round-trip drive is worth it over building a box )

 

[yashu]

I've got a couple spare Anderson flats if you need @yashu.

(You know, if a two hour round-trip drive is worth it over building a box )

Thanks @RJG2 !

I might take you up on this. Four days a week I’m right around the corner from you so there’s that

 

[yashu]

Pumice also works for Azalea if you don't have kanuma.
Could mix that with bark for the time being of you have it.

Unfortunately the only pumice I have is already mixed in a 1:1:1 APL and I’ve heard that azaleas are not fond of the all purpose bonsai mix for whatever reason. I was able to acquire the other previously mentioned components and had some stuff already. It seems up here in the northern northeast if you don’t get your soil components in early spring then you’re SOL unless you want to get stuff shipped which doesn’t work well on short notice.

 

[Paradox]

Unfortunately the only pumice I have is already mixed in a 1:1:1 APL and I’ve heard that azaleas are not fond of the all purpose bonsai mix for whatever reason. I was able to acquire the other previously mentioned components and had some stuff already. It seems up here in the northern northeast if you don’t get your soil components in early spring then you’re SOL unless you want to get stuff shipped which doesn’t work well on short notice.

I live in a bonsai soil desert as well.
Unfortunately there are no close by sources for soil components in the northeast.

I stock up in the spring and if I need something, I find the cheapest price I can at the time online.

 

[RJG2]

Unfortunately the only pumice I have is already mixed in a 1:1:1 APL and I’ve heard that azaleas are not fond of the all purpose bonsai mix for whatever reason. I was able to acquire the other previously mentioned components and had some stuff already. It seems up here in the northern northeast if you don’t get your soil components in early spring then you’re SOL unless you want to get stuff shipped which doesn’t work well on short notice.

(I've got a couple bags of 3/16 pumice as well if you need it - we should split a pallet sometime)

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Yardadori can be the art of what’s possible. Likely a few days won’t kill the tree or cause more damage to the roots.

Have done stopgap jobs before and trees were fine. One learns over time to get extra stuff…just in case. Now we have lots of supplies on hand from hard won experience.

Take the time to do the job right. Otherwise it’s Ben Franklin all over again …(Decide in an instant, then regret for years later.)

Cheers
DSD sends

 

[Shibui]

A few days is no problem to a fresh potted plant. I had some azaleas that had been dug up and left on the sidewalk for 3 days before they came to me. I was surprised when they all survived.
Poor soil does not kill a plant instantly. It takes months for root problems to manifest in pots so a week or so should not kill your tree.

The root ball was very compact so I was able to collect about 80% of the total roots. Is there any benefit or is it a harmful to wash the roots at this point? I hosed off the very top of the root ball to get a look at the trunk and nebari but otherwise I left most field soil on the plant as I was not sure what action would be more conducive to survival.

Azalea usually have a very compact roots system with masses of very fine roots so it is easy to get most of the main roots when transplanting but keeping all the roots is not a criteria for survival. My experience transplanting azalea shows they can easily cope with quite severe root reduction.
Need to remember, if we want to convert a collected tree to bonsai it will eventually need to fit into a smallish bonsai pot. That will mean root reduction at some stage. The question is when and how will that root reduction take place?
I have decided that collection is the best time to make that root reduction. The tree is already being moved. That is usually the time we reduce branching and foliage to a minimum. As the tree recovers we begin to rebuild the branches. In later years it will probably have much more branching to support so massive root reduction may be more traumatic in later years.
Root recovery is another reason I prefer to reduce roots at collection. I have noticed that more than 90% of new roots emerge from the cut ends where I have reduced roots. It seems counterproductive to force the tree to grow lots of great new roots only to cut them all off again a year or 2 later. There seems to be no difference in tree's ability to grow new roots from cut ends closer or further away from the trunk so I now chop harder at collection so I don't have to go through it all again in a few years.
I know all that is contrary to most bonsai advice but it has been developed over many years with a lot of collected trees and does seem to work for me. Whether you agree or try it is entirely up to each individual.

I have hosed off azalea roots to remove garden soil but it can be quite messy as the massed fine roots stop the water from penetrating and direct most of it right back at whoever is holding the hose! Not much fun with winter collected plants. The soil here is usually friable so just shaking the tree or gently tapping the root ball on the ground is usually enough to dislodge most of the garden soil. A little damage to the ends of roots is Ok because I am intending to cut most of them shorter anyway.
Some old soil remaining among the roots does not seem to be a problem and can be removed at future repots.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

I have decided that collection is the best time to make that root reduction. The tree is already being moved. That is usually the time we reduce branching and foliage to a minimum. As the tree recovers we begin to rebuild the branches. In later years it will probably have much more branching to support so massive root reduction may be more traumatic in later years.

I know all that is contrary to most bonsai advice but it has been developed over many years with a lot of collected trees and does seem to work for me. Whether you agree or try it is entirely up to each individual.

I have hosed off azalea roots to remove garden soil but it can be quite messy as the massed fine roots stop the water from penetrating and direct most of it right back at whoever is holding the hose! Not much fun with winter collected plants. The soil here is usually friable so just shaking the tree or gently tapping the root ball on the ground is usually enough to dislodge most of the garden soil. A little damage to the ends of roots is Ok because I am intending to cut most of them shorter anyway.
Some old soil remaining among the roots does not seem to be a problem and can be removed at future repots.

Totally concur with almost all of the above. Totally respect @Shibui viewpoint

Two things have a slightly different opinion on, but it’s all good.

First best timing of root reduction is likely a bit more situational due to the nature of their fine fibrous roots vs those of most other trees.

- Cut them right off when out of the ground and there are less intact roots to fuel foliar growth, but well handed azaleas grow roots fast anyways. Cut these later at an appropriate time and they’ll likely respond just as fast. However practically kicks in and it just makes sense to get the job done in one fell swoop. So likely not that different view here.

- This feeds into the second thought. Water washing an azaleas roots. Have done hundreds of azaleas, little and very large and believe it is better to get the job right the first time. As opposed to having to do the job all over and correctly the second time. Have lots of experience with folks bringing trees with root issues in pots, only you to find the tree was never properly root washed,.

Did a large heirloom tree this spring that had been steadily declining to sporadic, anemic foliage. Only to get in the roots discover old soil compacted in the shin. The fellow whose tree it was worked sent me a photo Friday. The tree was backbudding profusely, even on one branch he thought was dead.

Here’s the photo.



Cheers
DSD sends

 

[yashu]

So the tree has been removed from the pot and all the clay soil washed out. I reduced some of the thicker leggy roots that did not seem to be feeding any of the finer fibrous mass. I created a soil using a little bit of everything you all suggested with even a couple cups from the bottom of a kanuma bag that I found in the garage. I mixed a little biochar compost I picked up (a couple handfuls at most). This was a new product to me so I figured I’d give it a try here. It’s inoculated with mycorrhizae apparently. I’ll post a pic tomorrow. Tree drains well and I took the opportunity to tweak the planting angle. Fingers crossed!

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

We will look forward to the trees progress!

Best
DSD sends