Flowers 2018

Leo in N E Illinois

The Professor
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on the IL-WI border, a mile from ''da Lake''
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A freeloader (soon it's going to be the only living thing in this pot...).

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That is a woodland understory plant, keep it, use it as kusamono. Plant a fern with it, and a few other things. That's a nice one, small and understated enough to accompany many trees as an accent. I forget it's name.
 

Leo in N E Illinois

The Professor
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Location
on the IL-WI border, a mile from ''da Lake''
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Works in progress
Azalea 'Kegon', a narrow petal or firecracker style flower Satsuki, jus got it. Sort of a windswept octopus style, but only 5 trunks. I thought it interesting. Flowers have been removed.
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Shots from the blueberry patch
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Crabapple, I grafted all 5 blooming branches on to a non-suckering rootstock. I need to add a few more low and get rid of the top branches.
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Danny Tuckey

Yamadori
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Found this in a garden centre/nursery and it had no label or price. It was also in a rugged 50% off section. There was a similar Azalea but with orange/pink flowers but no weeds in another section priced at £34.00. They let me have it for £3.50!! Bargain. Don't know what type it is though.

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shinmai

Chumono
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Milwaukee WI
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Found this in a garden centre/nursery and it had no label or price. It was also in a rugged 50% off section. There was a similar Azalea but with orange/pink flowers but no weeds in another section priced at £34.00. They let me have it for £3.50!! Bargain. Don't know what type it is though.

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My wife surprised me a couple of days ago when she stopped at a garden center and brought home three rhododendron azaleas for me to work on. One was pure white, and from memory I think the blossoms may be identical to yours. I’m in San Francisco for two more days, but when I get home I’ll check the tag for the cultivar name, and post a picture of a blossom for you to compare.
I’m having a world of fun with garden center azaleas for very little money. The biggest challenge is dealing with the gigantic root mass, and reducing it to fit in a bonsai pot. I have a Ramapo that was in a one-gallon nursery pot, probably 15” tall. I cut it down to four inches, and defoliated it. Two weeks later it is budding all over, and starting to open leaves. The funny part is I ended up with a $15 azalea, in a $150 Marcus Berenbrinker pot.
They are amazingly durable, and bounce back from the most severe pruning surprisingly well.
 

Leo in N E Illinois

The Professor
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Location
on the IL-WI border, a mile from ''da Lake''
USDA Zone
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Found this in a garden centre/nursery and it had no label or price. It was also in a rugged 50% off section. There was a similar Azalea but with orange/pink flowers but no weeds in another section priced at £34.00. They let me have it for £3.50!! Bargain. Don't know what type it is though.

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I can't give you a specific cultivar name, there's too many hybrids. I do think it is an Exbury type hybrid. They usually include some deciduous azalea in the parentage. They behave a little different than Satsuki, but should be worth attempting bonsai with.
 

Hyn Patty

Shohin
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NC mountains
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This is one of my adenium in training to become a bonsai in flower now - in the Asian/Chinese style, as Desert Roses are very popular there. This is an adenium obseum which is grown for it's thick caudex and gnarly exposed roots, as well as it's amazing flowers. This particular plant has blooms in the 3.5 to 4 inch wide size range which last for a few days per bloom. Other kinds like the adenium arabicum (especially the Thai socotranums) are grown less for their flowers, which are selected to be very small, but for their extra thick trunks and very low branching forms to be grown in somewhat more traditional bonsai styles. These are a close relative to the baobob tree but stay more a shrub size, easily drwarfed.

This particular cultivar is grafted (very clean) and is called 'Joy Rich'. Blooms open with yellow in the heart of the petals which begins to fade by the second day. While these do not have a woody bark (neither do baobobs) they are a succulent that produces a woody inner core over time as they age and can live for hundreds of years. Flowers can be single, double, or triple layered and are usually some form of pink. White, red, black, purple, and yellow are less common colors more recently developed through hybridizing selection of new cultivars.

I currently have about 300 of these, most of which are 2nd year plants grown from seed. I have imported these mostly from Thailand and Taiwan, including my few grafted cultivars which were sent bare rooted. Phytosanitary certificates are required to get them through US customs. There are a number of enthusiasts collecting and growing these in the USA but the trees do best if you can provide either long hot summers with winter protection, or grow them indoors in a sunny window or under high output lighting. Adeniums (Desert Roses) do not tolerate being wet when temperatures drop into the 50's but are easily over wintered dormant or semi dormant while dry, in the 40's or higher. These thrive in the deep South, especially out west such as in Arizona where Mark Dimmit (a leading US authority on Desert Roses) has long grown them.

If you do internet searches on 'adenium bonsai' you can see a wide range of adenium types grown in various styles. Typically they bloom in the early summer after breaking dormancy and can remain evergreen if 'winter' conditions are mild. Or they can be deciduous in climates where they need to go dry (dormant) over the winter months.

Adenium Joy Rich-2.jpgAdenium Joy Rich-1.jpg
 
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