I dug up a fifty year azalea with a pretty big central chunk of dead wood. I shaped it some and now it looks pretty nice.

Should I seal the exposed, jagged pieces of wood up to keep them from rotting? Using what? The wood is soaked from rain. Do I let it dry out for a while before sealing anything?

I would cut them flush to the branch / trunk so they can heal over. But that is me.

Here is the picture. The dead wood just looks good, to me, and is really a stump. If you look very closely you can see a couple of weeds growing in the wood where it has been rotting. I want to stop that, and stop the rotting that leads to it.

Look into wood hardener, used for repairing rotting woodwork on the house. Not, the wood needs to dry out, yet, a dry azalea is a dead azalea ..

OK, the plan is wrap up all the dead stuff I want to keep in plastic, water, take the plastic off, give it lots of time to dry, then wood hardener. Check the forecast every day.

Bad news is hurricane Ida will be dumping water on us a couple of days. The good news the sun will be shining a lot in September. I'll wait until it stops raining.

Put it out of the rain, under a roof, greenhouse etc.

Water with care, not to hit the deadwood.

leatherback wrote:

Put it out of the rain, under a roof, greenhouse etc.

Water with care, not to hit the deadwood.

The 74 year old back resists moving it very much, because it is the biggest, heaviest pot I have, and it is full of wet dirt. I think plastic for now. When the hurricane induced rain is past we will probably have a week or so with no rain (this is the usual pattern) and with full sun it will probably dry out.

Watering carefully should not be a problem. I should be able to avoid the dead wood.

Ivan wrote:

The 74 year old back resists moving it very much, because it is the biggest, heaviest pot I have, and it is full of wet dirt.

Hm yeah, that can be a challenge. You need an 'prentice to lug heavy stuff under the guise of teaching!

leatherback wrote:

Ivan wrote:

The 74 year old back resists moving it very much, because it is the biggest, heaviest pot I have, and it is full of wet dirt.

Hm yeah, that can be a challenge. You need an 'prentice to lug heavy stuff under the guise of teaching!

I have one. He's 4 years old. Not much carrying things but he is real good at watering.

Ivan wrote:

I have one. He's 4 years old. Not much carrying things but he is real good at watering.

Make sure you do not pay him. That would be considerde child labour, and is frowned upon in many countries

If you ever need help moving big pots around, let me know. I can be convinced to be flown in