About 2 yrs. ago, when I was in our old house (which we just moved out of a couple of months ago), I (stupidly) planted a row of evergreen azaleas (sorry, can't remember the variety now!) against the front of the house, under the dense shade of a HUGE magnolia... Not only was the dense shade a problem, but the tree roots as well (there were two large magnolias in that yard). FYI, I didn't really know what I was doing in the garden back then! The azaleas (which were 5 gal. each, I think when I bought them) never thrived or bloomed, naturally, and grew into an ugly, leggy shape.

When we were about to move, I decided just to prune them way back & try to transplant one of the plants into an extra-large container (24"), to see if it would do better - that was probably about 6 mos. ago.

The container azalea, now in a semi-shade/filtered sunny spot on the patio at our new house, has improved greatly since I moved it to the pot. Since I allowed the plant to grow some during the "normal" pruning period (May/June), should I give it a good prune now to encourage even better growth for next spring? The plant, though much better than before, is still somewhat leggy, but I'm afraid to injure it after so much TLC & effort! Oh yes - the plant has never bloomed, nor has it ever developed buds.

Thanks!!