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I have an 8 year old Azalea bonsai and I am very worried about it’s condition. the leaves as of this writing are dry and brown. it did go through a dry period but I do not remember the leaves looking so dry. the soil although currently damp is very hard. any advice or comments would be appreciated. I am very concerned about losing this beautiful specimen.

Can you post a picture of the Azalea?

There you go


Looks very dry/dead. We will need a bit more info: your location,watering schedule, when was it last repotted, what is/was its position, what have you changed....

I live in charlotte NC, I was watering daily, the position was partial shade with late afternoon sun, I have had the specimen for a year and have not repotted, I have it ready to be winterized with pine bark mulch which worked great during last winter.

I was watering daily, the position was partial shade with late afternoon sun, I

Sounds good. But as lucR said on the picture it looks dry. The leaves look somewhat how my azalea last year looked like after a hot summer, with occationaly forgot to water.
It did not recover until next spring. But at that point i also started changing the PH of my tapwater. As i don't have rainwater available. And my tap water had a to high PH. I first test the PH, normaly water is 7.4 where i live, and i change that with acid to 5.5. After using that, my azeala recoverd within two months. Even old leaves that were discollerd change back. Except for the damaged onces. So i would also try to test your ph if your using tapwater also.

How did you test the PH ? how did you know what PH was appropriate. thank you for your support.

Azaleas need a ph of 5 to 5.5 any higher or lower then the roots have a hard time taking up nutrients.

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You can buy an electrical device to test it, but the cheaper onces don't last long.
I use ph test strips myself, for example ph test set they sell at aquarium stores, pool water test kit or ph test strips for human urine. All those ph test you can use, just get something what you can buy locally for cheap.

Products that you can use to lower ph, for example a simple one is: lemon juice. that has a ph of 2.0. Few drops of that in your watering can, and it lowers the ph. Test with test strips how much your need to get around 5.0 -5.5. Then water your plant.
You can also test your run-off water from the drainage holes. As the soil might have a higer ph now, so mixing soil + your water, might bring it down a bit, but not all the way to 5.0 the first few times your water. Ph will be stable after a few waterings.

Where i live in the grocerystore you can buy lemon juice, something like the picture below.


I myself use oxalic acid, but i only use that because i had it already available.

--- end of summer 2020 it looked like this untill spring 2021 ---


In spring after changing ph 1 month later:


Two months later: