Azalea jackpot - replanting advice

[greggles]

Hi everyone,

So just bought these two azaleas for a great price today. Feel like I hit the jackpot as they are big! In pots they come upto about waist height.


Been looking for mature plants as these will be planted in ground for a japanese garden I'm making rather than bonsai. Hoping to get some advice regarding the plants and repotting.

1) Am I right to assume the second photo is not actually a azalea but rather a gardenia radicans?

2) The azalea is coming to the end of flowering so should be trimmed back right? My main concern about trimming it is there doesnt seem to be alot of foliage below the flowers. Will this be an issue?

3) any tips for moving these into the ground?

4) am I crazy to use these in my japanese garden rather than as a bonsai? :p thinking of it but wife wont have a bar of it.

Thanks everyone

Greg

[greggles]

Try this again

[shibui]

Azalea transplant really well. Roots are very fine so just straight out of the pot and in the ground with no root work will usually be OK but they are also very resilient to root pruning so you can cut as much root off as you are comfortable with at transplant and they should still grow well after.
Any problems after root pruning are not usually related to the root work. If azalea does not like the soil, water or aspect no amount of TLC will keep it alive.

Azalea can be trimmed back as far as you like any time of year. They will sprout prolifically from bare or older wood. Regular hard pruning is used to maintain azalea size and shape. Advice is to seal any larger cuts to minimise dieback.

Large trunk azaleas are reasonably hard to obtain but the trunk still needs shape and character to be good bonsai. Most old, thick azaleas have terrible trunks. You will need to assess this one to decide bonsai potential and weigh that up against a happy life with azaleas in Japanese garden. Azaleas transplant very easily from the garden to a pot so an azalea in the ground is not lost to bonsai, just postponed.

I find it diffcult to distinguish between azalea nad gardenia until flowers open but both are treated almost the same so ID is not critical.

[gordonb]

You could always try a compromise - the gardenia is multi-trunked, doesn't lend itself (in the photo anyway) to bonsai; the azalea trunk has some movement, though - how about one for each?

[melbrackstone]

My Gardenia leaves are a little smoother and shinier than any Azalea I've ever owned. That looks to me to be more like a fuzzy Azalea leaf...
I've always done well with advice from shibui, so reckon you can't go wrong with what he's said.

I saw this blog last night that might help https://bonsaitonight.com/2019/08/20/to ... i-healthy/