Satsuki Azalea After-Flower Maintenance

[Chuah]

Azaleas look best when they are in full blooms. After flowerings, there are quite a lot of maintenance works to do: removing the flowers, cutting back the growing branches to two shoots and two leaves, redirecting new growths and fertilizing the tree.



I wrote two blogs detailing why we do this maintenance and how to do it.

Satsuki Azalea After-Flowering Maintenance

The best part of growing satsuki is when they are in full blooms but they only peak for about two weeks and then begin to decline. When 30-40% of the flowers have faded, it is time to remove all th…

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Satsuki Azalea After-Flowering Maintenance, Part 2 – Back Budding Results

In my last post, I discussed the basics of how to prune back azalea to two shoots and two leaves after removing the flowers. In this post, I will show back budding results from those cut-back…

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The following series of photos summarizes how to prune the branches back to two shoots and two leaves. This will force back buddings for ramifications.


Azalea tends to have a whorl of several growing shoots, on each branch the extra shoots are removed leaving a pair of Y-shape shoots with two leaves.







After two to three weeks, new buds popped up at where the two leaves were left and also along the branches.

 

[Soldano666]

I saw this. Jonas blog perhaps? Or someone shared it in one of those Facebook groups. Either way nice and direct. I went right out and pruned some of mine immediately after reading this.. thanks

 

[Chuah]

I saw this. Jonas blog perhaps? Or someone shared it in one of those Facebook groups. Either way nice and direct. I went right out and pruned some of mine immediately after reading this.. thanks

I put those two blogs on Facebook Azalea for Bonsai pages. Those might be the ones you saw. In your cooler zone, it is a good time to prune back as azalea puts out a strong growth after flowering.

 

[Doug J]

I saw this. Jonas blog perhaps? Or someone shared it in one of those Facebook groups. Either way nice and direct. I went right out and pruned some of mine immediately after reading this.. thanks

I don't do 'Fakebook', but Peter Warren has a good youtube video on it. Pruning back to two's.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Nicely done @Chuah

 

[JudyB]

I don't do 'Fakebook', but Peter Warren has a good youtube video on it. Pruning back to two's.

Peter Warren did a demo at the shohin show, and basically said that all Satsuki need to be basically sheared after flowering. He advocates just taking all the foliage off, just with a pair or pruning shears. I had never heard of this approach before for all Satsuki, but apparently that is what they do to the ones at his nursery in Japan. He did one in the demo, and basically said that they decline if you don't do this to them. I've always done the 2 and 2 with mine, unless I'm trying to cut back hard for new buds. He should know as many as he's worked with but I had never heard of doing this. I'll see, as I did come home and do one of mine that way.

 

[Soldano666]

I put those two blogs on Facebook Azalea for Bonsai pages. Those might be the ones you saw. In your cooler zone, it is a good time to prune back as azalea puts out a strong growth after flowering.

Already been done. I also went out and scooped up all the 50% off clearance azaela at the home deeps and Lowe's. Then hit em hard the mellow mullet way

 

[Doug J]

Peter Warren did a demo at the shohin show, and basically said that all Satsuki need to be basically sheared after flowering. He advocates just taking all the foliage off, just with a pair or pruning shears. I had never heard of this approach before for all Satsuki, but apparently that is what they do to the ones at his nursery in Japan. He did one in the demo, and basically said that they decline if you don't do this to them. I've always done the 2 and 2 with mine, unless I'm trying to cut back hard for new buds. He should know as many as he's worked with but I had never heard of doing this. I'll see, as I did come home and do one of mine that way.

Yes, that's what he does on the video also. One of his key phrases was "Satsuki like to be kept young." Not in a state of stasis.
After his hard 'hedge pruning' he still 'cut back to two's'.

 

[JudyB]

Yes, that's what he does on the video also. One of his key phrases was "Satsuki like to be kept young." Not in a state of stasis.
After his hard 'hedge pruning' he still 'cut back to two's'.

I think I'll be doing this only every other year on my older more developed ones. And never on the very old Kurume I have. I'll stick to spending hours and days with that one, just working the stronger areas harder, and 2x2's everywhere else.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

@Chuah
Nicely done blog posts. Thank you.

 

[BuckeyeOne]

@Chuah .
Am I past the window in 6a to prune?
Just purchased a couple and need to know if this be done now with a heat wave coming in the next couple weeks.
Thanks,
Buck

 

[Chuah]

@Chuah .
Am I past the window in 6a to prune?
Just purchased a couple and need to know if this be done now with a heat wave coming in the next couple weeks.
Thanks,
Buck

Hard to suggest whether it is OK to prune your newly acquired satsuki without knowing more about their backgrounds such as how healthy they are, are they newly imported trees or well established trees etc..

For a healthy tree, you can always prune to two shoots and stop there, or continue and shorten the two shoots, leaving at least a pair of leaves to prevent die back. Also keep the azalea in part shade.

With our zone 9 heat, I continue to cut away unwanted new growths in the summer to control growths. Will see if I can take a photo to show what I mean by this.

 

[Chuah]

@Chuah .
Am I past the window in 6a to prune?
Just purchased a couple and need to know if this be done now with a heat wave coming in the next couple weeks.
Thanks,
Buck

First photo, two shoots pushed out from this year’s cut-back. Second photo, the newly grown shoots were pruned leaving two leaves on each shoot.
It is safe to do such pruning even for our very hot zone 9 weather as long as I leave a pair of leaves after pruning.