Crispy Azalea

[Daryl R]

Hi folks;
I have a Hino de Giri Azalea in an 8" Nursery Pot which I picked up from Newman's Nursery about 8 months ago.
Been doing well up till the week before last when it got hit by the 40deg scorcher of a day.
50% of the leaves are now brown & crispy along with a corresponding amount of dead branches.
Given the temps here in Adelaide for the next month are predicted to be mid 20's... is it no too late to chop it back & give it a gud haircut?

[shibui]

It is never too late to cut back azalea. They can sometimes be finicky but are generally much hardier than most give credit for. I've seen them come back from almost dead a number of times.
Make sure you soak the pot at least overnight to rehydrate the soil to give the roots some chance to recover and follow up with better watering until it recovers.
You can leave the top as is and new shoots should form or you can cut back hard as azaleas are really good at new shoots, even on older wood.
It is not too late to cut back for regrowth but late cut back will usually remove most of next spring's flowers - a small price to pay for resurrecting your azalea IMHO.

[Daryl R]

Thanks Shibui;
Yes, hard cut back required to setup the structure moving forward. Not concerned about flowers at this stage.

[Daryl R]

Ok, so question now is how hard to cut back...
It is still a "Nursery Azalea" in an 8" pot with multiple branches, largest up to 3 or 4 mm.
My plan was to cut it back pretty hard....

[legoman_iac]

I lost a few tiny seedlings two weeks too, after Sydney for hit with some hot days. Two more established trees also looked baked ... a 25 yr old bottlebrush (which had an exagerated repot last year, exposing half the roots) and a younger trident maple (which lost all its leaves).

I potted the bottlebrush into a bigger pot as it was epically pot bound. It's happier now.

The trident is starting to push new leaves, so hope yet.

Not experienced with Azaleas, but lift it and check if it's pot bound first?

[shibui]

Ok, so question now is how hard to cut back...
It is still a "Nursery Azalea" in an 8" pot with multiple branches, largest up to 3 or 4 mm.
My plan was to cut it back pretty hard....

It is a bit hard to be definitive having never seen your azalea.
In addition, your idea of 'pretty hard' and mine may be vastly different.

In cases like this pictures are worth way more than a thousand words. We can see the structure, how many branches, size and complexity, etc. Some of us even have the smarts to be able to draw on photos to indicate what to do and where.
Ausbonsai only accepts pictures less than 1Mb file size so you may need to reduce file size before trying to upload.
Try to get good clear pictures from several sides, at trunk level and include something for size reference in pictures - a finger will do or the Standard Bonsai Size Gauge of a stubby or AA battery or something similar.

[Phil Rabl]

IMO, it's better not to trim back a plant that has had a drying out episode. We don't know what has died and what is alive, but the plant does. I think you should pamper it and wait to see where it shoots. Trimming may remove a branch that would have sprouted back.

[Daryl R]

Ok, finally succeeded in resizing my pics.

Was time to restructure any way so figured trim out dead stuff & restructure at same time

Def not potbound

Thanks for the advice.

[shibui]

Now we know what we are talking about. The pics make it much easier to make recommendations.

First question is why cut back hard? The trunk and branches are still really thin. If you are happy with a thin bonsai you should cut back but if your ambition is to develop a thick trunk bonsai it is probably better to let it grow. All growth contributes to trunk thickness. Chopping a lot off just slows that development.
Some species it is important to cut regularly to prevent bare sections but azaleas are one that will almost certainly bud anywhere on bare sections, even older trunks so they can be allowed to grow as long and big as you like and then successfully chopped when you achieve your thickness goals.

My idea of a hard cut back for azalea would be somewhere around the blue line on this image.

azalea 2a.png

Cutting higher than that would just be a moderate trim.

Sometimes I leave dried plants alone to do their thing but when I can see that branches are still alive like this case (green leaves at the tips of almost all branches) I often trim long shoots to concentrate the tree's efforts into places I want new shoots. Not a lot of difference in survival either way. In other words you can chop now or leave it to recover strength and chop in spring.

[Daryl R]

Yes, I agree a hard cut is too the blue line...
So Ok, I will pamper it for now with a view to maybe cut back in Spring.