Question on new Azalea

ye_bonsai

Hello everyone, Yesterday I bought a Satsuki Azalea from the local nursery. Its currently in a 1 gallon training pot and suprisingly is not root bound nor does it have any roots trying to escape from the drain holes. My question is this: Is it too late in the year to hard prune the foliage back seeing as how its already flowered for the year. Should I wait? Im not going to touch the roots until this next spring but I would like to be able to give the lovely shrub shape until then.

Zone 7
Oklahoma

Any input, opinions etc. is much appreciated. Thanks.

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jjeter

Major azalea pruning should be done in the fall. you really should not do anything during the summer months, so until then, get the Azalea Bonsai book from stonelantern.com. It is pretty much all you will need to take care of azaleas.

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Student of Bonsai

bwaynef

I also recommend Kennedy's book on the subject. _Floral Treasures of Japan_, if I'm remembering correctly, is the name of his offering.

After flowering is when satsuki has historically been recommended for repotting. If I recall, someone in TX makes a strong case for repotting them in the spring since our summers are very different than much of Japan's. It'll probably turn up in a search here.

If the tree's not rootbound then theres really no need to repot (as you mentioned). Hard pruning is probably best done during fall. Light pruning or trimming you could do now.

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ye_bonsai

bwaynef

The kennedy book goes for cheap on ebay. its better than the price there would indicate. See what you can find. (I bought mine for $0.01 ..but $8.95 for shipping)

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© 2004 - present bwaynef

JohnQuinn

I whack my Satsukis back pretty hard at the time of repotting, usually in June.

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Deb

Perhaps the reason that you would want to do your azalea pruning right after blooming is because the new growth that sets on as your flowers are dying is going to have next years flower buds on it. If you left it til late in the season, you might jeopardise next years flowers if you left the late starting blower buds that would have to regrow (due to late prune) to the tender mercies of old man winter.

mike108

Actually summer is when I do work on Pre bonsai azalea (only pre azalea) I use a technique I learned from roy nagatoshi, where almost all the foliage is stripped only a potential apex is left all branches removed. When this happens the azalea will bud out crazily and youll have a new branch structure to work with in 3 to 5 weeks.

For small azalea 1 to to branches are left .
For medium azalea 2 to 3 branches .
And for big azalea 4 to 5 branches.

Ive done this a few times and has always worked just dont fertilize until about a week after the process.

Mike

Glider

This is interesting. Could you give me some more details? I'm trying to restructure my satsuki subaru and your method sounds faster than mine.

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