Emergency Repot of Azalea Recommendations.

Coworker lost a pot to a wind storm recently. The azalea in it is rather healthy. He has a new pot and has asked me to do the repotting. I just want to make sure I'm doing this right. The tree is about 25cm high with a root ball about 12-15cm across.

The new pot is slightly larger than the old one. There is about a 5-10mm gap around the roots. My idea is to slightly tease out the edges of the roots and fill it in with comparable soil. Then just wire it all into the pot. It's loaded with flowers, so I'll remove every flower and bud.

The soil seems to be a bit broken down, so I'd like to repot the tree again in May. If, of course, the tree seems to still be rather healthy. I'd also like to advise him to do some minor trimming to keep the tree within design.

So far so good?

Lastly, should I do any branch trimming at this point? His tree is rather leggy and overgrown. Or should I wait until May's repotting? Or what?

Just slip pot it to the larger pot, leaving the roots alone for now. Then, in the spring, you can do a normal repot with root work. Don't trim branches until the tree is active, as it will back bud much better then. With your climate, you could probably do root work and a light trim, but it would be better for the tree to wait until spring.

I agree just slip pot it into the larger pot and add soil to fill the gaps. Wait until spring to do any root work.

Stan Kengai wrote:Just slip pot it to the larger pot, leaving the roots alone for now. Then, in the spring, you can do a normal repot with root work. Don't trim branches until the tree is active, as it will back bud much better then. With your climate, you could probably do root work and a light trim, but it would be better for the tree to wait until spring.

^^^ this

orrrrrr...make a mini greehouse and convice the tree that it is spring.