Survivor Azalea...

Hello all

This Azalea has quite a story.

It passed the last 15 years in a big concrete container in my parents front yard.
It was a very big and beautiful shrub until the automatic watering system broke last summer during my parents vacations.
When they arrived, they found the plant completely dry and all the leaves had fallen off.
My mother thought it was dead, gave it a hard prune and hoped for recovery.
The plant just gave a couple of shots untill next winter.

Like my mother was going to get rid of it, i took it.
I lift it up, the soil and roots where a mess, basically there were no live roots and the soil looked like concrete.
I bare rooted the plant and planted it on 50% Kanuma + 50% Akadama.
For my big surprise, the plant revived and it´s now showing lots of new growth.

Any ideas for this future tree?

Is Azalea wood any good for deadwood work? Those 2 big main branches are dead?




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I don't think azalea wood is very durable. One seldom sees deadwood on azaleas -- in the ground or as bonsai. At any rate, you probably won't want both of those dead branches; they seem to send your plant moving off in 2 directions. I think you'd want to center your tree onto the base, which is very nice.