Azalea flowering twice

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

I've had this small Azalea bonsai for a few years now. It always flowers in May. This year I did a real hard trim back and reshape for something new. We had a tropical storm roll through the other week so I have not bothered much with it as its been great weather and had lots of water. Well I came home from work today to find one flower already bloom and a 2nd ready to. I know there are encore Azalea that will bloom a few times a year. Has anyone had this happen before. In the about 5 years I've owned this tree it has never flowered again after May.
Everything you see in the picture is almost 100% new growth. I was a little surprised to say the least.

 

[Graft]

Hi Scruffy,

Same thing happened to me this year. I took an azalea out of my garden and potted it up. Its now in it's second bloom. I was wondering as I have cut the roots back that it might feel threatened so is putting energy into a last ditch effort to produce seeds. I'll find out next spring I suppose.

 

[Clicio]

I have a Kurume Hino Crimson that flowers non stop. I had to actually prune all flowers and all flower buds to be able to repot it.

 

[just.wing.it]

I have a Kurume Hino Crimson that flowers non stop. I had to actually prune all flowers and all flower buds to be able to repot it.
View attachment 322329

Hmm....well that's an interesting problem to have! Haha!
That flower color is amazing!

 

[Shibui]

Many azaleas here have a few flowers through the year. Several of my satsuki flowered in autumn last season.

 

[Harunobu]

Azaleas develop their flower buds in late summer and early autumn. Once the flower bud is there, it could potentially flower. Pretty sure that a flower bud will open unless it is inhibited by some plant hormone(s). Certain weather and stochastic noise in the biochemical reactions can trigger flowering in late summer or autumn. The warmer your feather, the more likely a flower bud will flower before winter dormancy. People from Brazil, Hawaii, or Thailand telling us their azaleas flower continuously indicate exactly this.

You can repot an azalea while flowering. It is just that it makes no sense to repot exactly during the two weeks it is flowering as opposed to in the 50 other weeks it is not flowering. And that argument is completely gone if your plant flowers with 3 flowers at a time 30 weeks of the years rather than having 100 flowers during 2 weeks, and none the remainder of the year.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

I have a Kurume Hino Crimson that flowers non stop. I had to actually prune all flowers and all flower buds to be able to repot it.
View attachment 322329

Boy, that flower is amazing! However it looks a lot more crimson red than the Hino Crimsons I have here, but that could be a soil thing. However, the big difference is that tips of the anthers look different. Yours are enlarged like little jewels on the end of the stamens. Much larger then a Hino Crimson.

I think maybe yours might be a Hinodegiri or another cultivar related. If it’s a Hinodegirl it’s one of Wilson’s 50 #42! They are similar as a Hino Crimson is a hybrid of a Hinodegiri.

@Harunobu and others, what do think?

cheers. DSD sends

Here’s an example photo of a typical Hino Crimson flower below.


and here’s an example of a HinoDegiri. Bad photo, but check out the anthers.... like yours...

 

[Harunobu]

It has 8 stamen in both flowers.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

.... Not sure what that means except it’s a hybrid of some sort..

I enlarged the photo on my big screen and actually see 9 or 10 in the left one.

No matter, I‘ve have four large Hino Crimsons in my back yard for over 20 years now and maybe I’m just haven’t really seen them, or maybe they are something else. Both of us haven’t seen either the color or the large black jewel like anthers on ours.

Oh well, I guess I’ll have to wait until Spring and shoot some close ups to compare.

cheers
DSD sends

 

[Harunobu]

Yeah, it turns out I cannot count to 10 once again.

Anyway, this is the no of stamen for evergreen azalea species:
indicum 5
nakaharae 10
kaempferi 5(-6)
oldhamii (8 - )10
kiusianum 5
simsii (8 - ) 10
stenopetalum 5(-7)
yedoense 10
ripense 10

Source: https://www.azaleas.org/wp-content/uploads/azalean/20/2/articles/What_is_an_Azalea.pdf

So the high number of stamen in Clicio's azalea makes me think it is not even a kurume azalea. Not sure what it is. My guess would be that the stamen either come from R.simsii or R.yedounse. Might it be a Girard azalea plant? It is named 'Hino Crimson' but in the picture the colour doens't look crimson at all. But you can see the picture has a lightning issue and colour in pictures is never reliable.

Flower proportions seem to suggest to me that the flower is also larger than a usual kurume azalea. Compare how far the anthers&stamens reach out of the flower on Clicio's picture and DSD's picture. With kurume, specially nearer to R.kiusianum, the stamen are often as far out as the flower petals.