I am always on the lookout for new material and prefer to work with material that has accumulated some age and character through being garden plants or from nature during the first phase of their lives. Sometimes they come for free and sometimes you have to pay. These two Azalea plants were advertised for free and just needed to be dug out. That took two minutes as these are shallow rooted plants.

Freshly dug Azaleas and the first step is to remove all dead branches and then also to remove most of the garden soil. It is better to remove all old soil, but in some cases it is ok to leave some of the garden soil depending on the season. You do not always have a choice when the plants become available and then you have to make informed decisions about how far you can go, especially when it comes to root work.

These two were potted up and we also managed to get seven smaller plants off the larger clump. Needless to say, these two are clump style and will be grown and refined over the next few years as such.

Aftercare is the most important aspect when it comes to doing work on plants out of the optimum season. Watering is a big part of this and after I have watered the plants in, I always water with a nutrient rich tonic and fertiliser and prefer liquid ones. My go to preference is Swift Grow due to the fact that it is organic, contains all needed nutrients and very important for me, the right probiotics to get the roots off to a great start.

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