Beginner - question about Satsuki Azalea starter plants

[mariegan7]

Hello everyone,

I am a beginner who is starting her first bonsai with a Satsuki Azalea. I just came back from Nuccio's nursery in Altadena, CA and picked out some nice Satsuki azaleas to start out with. I read a post on this forum that it is desirable to start with a single trunk azalea. Is this true? Two of my azaleas have multiple trunks. I will post pics tomorrow, it is just too dark right now.

 

[Eric Group]

It all depends on what style you are going for. You could do a forest planting of some sort with azaleas I suppose though I rarely see them used as anything more than a ground cover/ shrub around the base of larger trees in pending style forest plantings. For a specimen bonsai, mature trees with a single trunk are usually most desirable, especially for azaleas as it is rare to find a good, mature "trunked up" azalea!

There are also twin trunks, triple trunk styles... Most azaleas tend to grow naturally in just a big "clump" with a bunch of branches shooting out of the ground and no real "design" at all. They can be beautiful landscape shrubs like that, but are not ideal for bonsai in that form normally.

Please post some pics soon, I'd love to see what you got!

 

[mariegan7]

Thanks for your quick response Eric. I will post pics tomorrow!

 

[Eric Group]

Sure! Here is a pic showing small azalea used around the base of larger trees in a landscape planting: