Hello Im looking for some advice on what I think is a overwatering accident which made the new leaves on most of the new shoots wilt and droop on my 8 month old azalea, 4 days have passed two have been warm sun and light breeze but the temps in atlanta have been cold at night and cool during the day. should I see some response in the leaves soon?

In this kind of incidents, we really need photographs to be sure.

Im sorry I should have known that would be difficult without pics. The close up pic shows the only shoot that has not fallen limp and I know that the pot is too big for the plant but I really wanted to use this one. I will say I used a correctly blended superthrive watering the last time just to help anyone. Thank you.

What soil did you use?

approx 40% peat then what is supposed to be decomposed granite was really industrial sand mechanically crushed granite

Thank you, and when did you repotted it?

this little one was placed in this pot just 6 months ago, it was pulled from the ground as a cutting from a mature outdoor 10 year old bush that had shoots that came low on the trunk and rooted in the soil these shoots you see are fresh and were thriving.

OK, I was asking because this tree looks a if there are more problems than just overwatering it one time. If it where to be overwatered once you would see the leafs turn yellow before they fall off. This looks as if the roots suddenly started to rot and the tree isn't able to feed itself anymore. This could either have been caused by a recent repot or by a slow decay of the root system and triggered by overwatering. As you say this tree hasn't been repotted lately the tree must have been very weak before you overwatered it, because a healthy azalea must be able to survive a short period in wet soil. So in order answer your question if this tree could be saved, we have to find what caused this tree to be so weak in the first place.

With this being said, I think that your soil mixture of peat and coarse sand is far from ideal for growing azalea's or growing any tree inside a pot for that matter because it just holds way too much water. Azalea's should be potted into 100% kanuma soil. In structure it looks and feels the same as akadama. It holds about the same amount of water and air too, but it's much more acidic as azalea's prefer this. So this is one reason I could think of that might have weaken you tree as it's very easy to overwater you tree in this soil and you might have done it numerous times before without you noticing it. It might also have suffocated due to lack of oxygen in the soil. If this is the case, than I fear the worse, as I don't think this tree will survive another repot within six months after the previous in this state.

But there might also be other causes. Could you give me a detailed description of how you have taken care of this tree in the last six months? Think of its position. Was it inside, of outside? Did it get a lot of sunlight? How often did you water it? Did you gave him a lot of fertiliser? etc..

P.S. If I look at your tree, I see that in six months it has only managed to grow 3 shoots and a couple of leafs. To be honest, I don't think that your tree have actually thrived as you say it. I think it just used its stored energy to grow a few roots and a few leaves, but it was never able to actually abstract energy from the sun and its nutritions. So once the tree had used all its energy, it started to decay. Could you think off why this tree wasn't able to produce more energy?

I remember looking for yellowing of the leaves and ruled out overwatering but like my post heading says I feel overwatering may be the problem but you have pointed out something I didnt think about, the soil draining well enough I usually mix 40% organic and 60% aggrigate for all my trees but I admit that isnt always the right mix this tree got a few hours of direct and few hours of filtered sun till I brought it inside my garage in front of the window there is plenty of filtered light from other windows. temp in atlanta has been seeing 20s lately in the evenings. The weird thing is if I showed pics of other cuttings and of the host of these cuttings which has a 1.5-2 inch trunk and very beautiful thriving I might say, they all are doing well I think I have forgotten something I have done with this one but I might for the sake of research, take this one out of the pot and inspect the roots If you wouldnt mind I can send you pics of the large one just to get your opinion, can send either private message or on this thread.