Neglected azalea

[Erika_Leaman]

I'm not sure if this is a thread asking for advice or more of a freakshow.


Photos from today.


I collected this azalea from a client garden last spring (2024.) It was covered in scale insects, about a meter tall but most branching was dead. She just wanted rid of it so I chopped it down, dug it up, and stuck it in a large pot filled with generic potting mix.

Spring 2025 I thought I either work on it, get it repotted into better substrate, and deal with the pests properly or it goes in the bin.
After I repotted it flowered!

Since then, the branch on the left died off. Which had the most foliage. But the center branch is still alive, despite having a weird root and quite undesirable features.

Any hypotheticals with what on earth I could do to sort out this trunk??

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Honestly this has the coarse leafs of a Rhododendron, vs the finer growth of the azaleas.

In any event while it looks like you put in some work on it and are sorta invested on the plant… would chose to put it in the compost bin. Then spend time looking for an exciting azalea. There are many fantastic varieties suited for the UK climate.

Cheers
DSD sends

 

[Erika_Leaman]

Not much work has been done to be honest and I have limited space, so honestly the advice of putting it in the compost is what I need to hear.
Cheers!

 

[Shibui]

Do you have pictures of the flowers? The leaves do not seem typical of the azaleas I'm familiar with either so would like to check what type you may have.

As for where to go from here: given you want to keep working with this one I think you are in for a long journey given the current issues.
The live trunk probably needs lost of growing. For me this would mean a good sized grow pot, plenty of fertilizer, etc and let it grow as big as possible to get more options from that live trunk then cut back hard to a basic trunk structure before developing branching and ramification. Down here I would allocate 5-15 years for such a project so I can see why @Deep Sea Diver is recommending starting out with something with options for quicker returns. If you're happy to allocate the time and effort, feel free to go for it.

I don't think that root is too much of a problem. Depending how the trunk develops and how long the dead trunks survive that root may become a feature - almost root over stump - or you could plant it a bit deeper so that more roots develop from the base of the trunk and from that root.
As it is at this stage I'd probably try to maintain some or all of the dead wood as a possible feature in the final style, but without any real trunk and branching it's hard to say what will look good.

 

[Erika_Leaman]

Flowers from this year.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Decidedly a rhody. Cute flowers, big leaves for bonsai. Looks like a Vireya

If you really want to keep it, it needs to be a larger composition….plant in the ground and tailor prune it once it gets critical mass.

Cheers
DSD sends

 

[Erika_Leaman]

I appreciate your knowledge. I've no means of planting it in the ground currently. I will probably keep a hold of it until I'm strapped for space.... which may be this spring when I pot up my scots pine seedlings...