Azalea

[Small Trees]

When is the best time to repot azalea. Not sure what kind as has small red flowers. As they all all flower at different times. It is currently under flower now and I want to repot once as soon as it can be done.

[KIRKY]

You can repot after flowering. Remove all spent flowers.
Cheers
Kirky

[treeman]

Yes after flowering is fine. However, If you are looking to rapidly develop azaleas, repotting before flowering is better. To do that you MUST remove all flower buds before you touch the roots.
The plant will then concentrate all it's growth energy toward growth rather than flower production which is extremely stressful to the plant and they can taker some time to recover from it!
By forgetting about flowers for a number of years, you will be way out ahead in the end.

[Small Trees]

thanks guys. I think this year as it is screaming for a re pot. I think I will do it this year then work on developing the tree rather than the flowers next year.

[Webos]

I have never let my azaleas flower for the reasons treeman has stated..

Adam

[kcpoole]

I was always advised that if you wan tto develop an Azalea faster then make sure you remove all the buds early,
Once they start to develop the flower buds then you might as well let them continue as the tree has already spent the energy on them so you might as well enjoy them.

Prune back hard in January/ Feb to remove the buds early in the development.

Ken

[kcpoole]

I have never let my azaleas flower for the reasons treeman has stated..

Adam

I always let mine flower if they want to. they look nice and I get to enjoy them, and I am not in that much hurry.

An interesting project might be to do a test on several trees to quantify the difference. Let a group flower and another not and see how different they actually are over time.

Ken

[Mbunro]

Yes after flowering is fine. However, If you are looking to rapidly develop azaleas, repotting before flowering is better. To do that you MUST remove all flower buds before you touch the roots.
The plant will then concentrate all it's growth energy toward growth rather than flower production which is extremely stressful to the plant and they can taker some time to recover from it!
By forgetting about flowers for a number of years, you will be way out ahead in the end.

sorry to hijack a post but my question is pretty similar to whats been asked.
i got a nice little azalea from a certain high profile fire sale.
not sure on variety, but i throw all my tags from nursery stock in a big bucket in the shed so should be able to figure it out with a bit of digging.
anyway the tree is about 10 cm tall with a MASSIVE spread of exposed roots, was absolutely covered in buds, and 1 or 2 had already opened.
took it straight home, removed ALL of the buds, and a few larger branches.
then removed about 2 thirds of roots and put in a shallower training dish.

its been about 3 weeks and seems to be surviving, but my question is basically did i do the bud removal at the right time or should i have waited until after flowering was over?
obviously not much i can do about it now, was more just curious for future reference.

[shibui]

I have repotted azaleas almost all year and never had one suffer yet. Removing flowers is a great step. It reduces demands on the tree so it can concentrate on growing new roots and leaves. I think yours should be fine at this time of year. just give it time. They normally start to grow after flowering so should be soon.

[Small Trees]

This post has gone to far. This site is entirely for helping one another. Not testostrone issues between growers. I started this post and their has been some great tips but let's thank each other for the help leave criticism and sarcasm out of it. The whole intent of this site is to help one another. For those who cannot follow correct bonsai etiquette then I suggest you keep your comments to your self and not make them visible. Maybe admin should start doing some removal of these people. Rant over.

[kcpoole]

This post has gone to far. This site is entirely for helping one another. Not testostrone issues between growers. I started this post and their has been some great tips but let's thank each other for the help leave criticism and sarcasm out of it. The whole intent of this site is to help one another. For those who cannot follow correct bonsai etiquette then I suggest you keep your comments to your self and not make them visible. Maybe admin should start doing some removal of these people. Rant over.

All posts not directly related tot he OP removed as per request