Post-Bloom Management Methods and Care Tips for Azaleas
The warm spring has arrived, and most of the Chinese New Year flowers placed in your home have finished blooming. Are you worrying about how to deal with these flowers that no longer look their best? Are you asking around for advice on how to care for them? If you hope they will bloom beautifully again next year, then please pay attention here. Starting with this issue, we have carefully prepared a series of articles on "Post-Bloom Management of Chinese New Year Flowers" for you, and we hope they will be helpful. If you have care experience in this area, please also write to us and share it with flower lovers everywhere! 1. Pruning and shaping: After azaleas finish blooming, the spent flowers generally need to be removed by hand, followed by appropriate thinning of branches and removal of overly dense branches so they will send out new growth. 2. Fertilizer and water management: In northern regions, water tends to be alkaline and fairly hard, so long-term watering of plants can easily cause soil alkalization and affect flower growth. Therefore, before watering, water should be stored in a container for more than 24 hours and used after the chlorine has evaporated; alternatively, water mixed with an appropriate amount of ferrous sulfate or edible white vinegar can be used about once every 10 days. When watering, take care to water when dry and let it dry between waterings. Azaleas do not need much fertilizer, and it is generally applied along with watering. From late spring to early summer, apply soybean cake fertilizer water once every half month. Apply thin fertilizer frequently to encourage new buds to sprout and branches to grow; if soybean cake fertilizer is not available, you can buy some acidic flower fertilizer on the market and use it in the same way. From mid-to-late June, apply some quick-acting phosphorus and potassium fertilizer to promote flower bud formation; by late autumn, stop fertilizing to avoid new growth affecting flower bud differentiation.