By Claire_ingle
I have a five year old azalea. It flowers but has become very woody and twiggy with just the flowers on the ends. Should I cut it back to promote new growth and get rid of the long woody stems? Please advise. Many thanks
3 Sep, 2012
You are a bit late in the year for pruning now, it should have been done just after flowering to allow the new growth to produce flower buds.
You could tidy it up now at the expense of only getting a few flowers next year.
A suggestion could be to lightly cut out the worst of the dried out growth now, and leave the remainder to produce flowers next year, then after flowering you can prune out the remainder of the woody growth!
http://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Data/Azalea/Azalea.htm
4 Sep, 2012