The little azaleas in spring nursery and garden center
displays, which often seem more
bloom than plant, can teach you one of life’s happier lessons.
If you have young azaleas
or have pruned back your old azaleas, take a hint from those
container dazzlers, says
University of Georgia expert Mel Garber.
“Commercial azalea growers prune their small azaleas
several times during a
growing season,” said Garber, an Extension Service
horticulturist with the UGA
College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
“They do this only under controlled fertilization and
watering,” he said,
“which is needed to promote vigorous growth.”
The commercial grower’s efforts yield a healthy, compact
plant that explodes into
bright spring blooms. That’s why you can’t resist buying
them.
Repeat Color
‘Explosion’
And once you’ve got them planted around your yard, it’s easy
to repeat that
“explosion” each spring.
“Do the same thing the commercial growers do,”
Garber said.
Shape those young azaleas.
“Prune them a couple of times during the growing season
to develop a well-branched
plant,” he said. “Prune (or just pinch off) the tips
of the new branches after
they’ve grown out about four or five inches.
“This type of pruning makes the plant produce more
branches,” he said.
“You wind up shaping it into a more compact plant, too.
But the most important thing
is that next spring it will produce many more blooms than
plants that aren’t pruned this
summer.”
Prune After
Bloom
Prune young plants after they bloom. Do heavy pruning
immediately after the plants
flower. For light pruning, wait until new growth appears, and
prune the new growth.
Plants that have been severely pruned back this spring
should be pruned a few weeks
after the first vigorous growth.
In both cases, prune again as new branches grow out 4 or 5
inches.
The time between prunings can vary greatly, Garber said,
between a young plant and a
severely pruned plant with a mature root system.
Watch the Plant
The main thing is to watch the plant. Don’t let the branches
get too long before you
prune or pinch off the tips to encourage branching. Prune as
often as the rate of growth
allows before early summer.
There’s a limit, though.
“Azaleas need time for the new growth to mature and set
flower buds, so don’t
prune after the first week in July,” Garber said.
“You’re trying to get more
blooms by pruning. But if you prune too late in the summer you
could end up getting no
blooms.”
Don’t do any pruning after the first of July, he said,
except to remove a few wild,
tall limbs that shoot up late in the season.
Those will mess up the shape of the plant and aren’t likely
to branch well next spring.
Trim them out in late October or early November.
