Help me with a boring satsuki

[yashu]

I picked up this Momo no Haru satsuki and a few other pre-bonsai from Bill Valavanis’s International Bonsai Arboretum website. The trees all came well packed and healthy and fit the most part are very nice plants and great starters. This one however, has at a loss. Fortunately I have some time before the season is right to style azalea but I’m lacking an ideas. The trunk is arrow straight and then it’s just a bush. I’ve seen them potted up and sold like this and was never a fan so I’d appreciate any input on styling ideas that anyone can offer. I have seen another thread on here from someone who sources the same material from the same place but it did t get much into what progress was achieved on the design front. The foliage is very fine, much finer than any of my other azaleas so I’d really like to make this work. Do I just pick one of the myriad of branches to be a new leader and settle on upright or informal upright?

 

[JudyB]

If you could get another or two even you could prune them hard and set them together for a clump style planting. You would still want to wire some movement into the trunks.

 

[yashu]

If you could get another or two even you could prune them hard and set them together for a clump style planting. You would still want to wire some movement into the trunks.

Thanks for the response JudyB, I’m pretty sure he has more of these however I’m not sure how to bend the trunk. It’s a bit thicker than my thumb and I tested it for flex… it has none. To bend this would be a production… like raffia and trunk jacks type production, it’s very stout.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Not that bad a tree at all! That’s what nursery azaleas look like. Don’t lose heart, you’ve got a world of possibilities and a thick trunk to start with. It takes at least 4 years to grow to this point. Azaleas are easy to style and very predictably reliable growers once you get the hang of them.

Yep that trunk is on the edge for bending. I wouldn’t bother. I bend satsuki a lot and Momo No Haru has especially hard, brittle wood compared to many other cultivars. I got one from @BillV Last year and have had a couple goes at wiring on it, last year and just a couple weeks ago, which is at the zone we are into now… the azalea’s more flexible time of the year. Crack went the branch when I least expected! It was caused more by me then the tree, yet this has happened twice, so I know to watch out for these guys from now on.

@JudyB ’s idea for a clump is fine, nothing wrong with that at all, I’ve got, they can look great!

If you want to style a bit different, as you suggested, these nursery guys are prime for informal upright variations. If you choose this option, I’m thinking you’d best look for a repotting soon….with a change of angle to start with, then a selective cut back of branches.

But before doing any of this see if you can choose one of the branches to go up and one to go down and use that as your primary line, and the one opposite as another down branch.

Keep lots of foliage to start with and see if you can maximize an existing branch going off the primary to continue up at different angle, and one down from the same junction.

For the down branches, look for alternating branchlets going out near horizontal, or wire this way… but cut any straight up or down out.

A couple warnings/thoughts…

1. Please do not cut all the foliage off of any branch you are keeping, especially at the tops or at the ends of apex/branches…. I know folks have done this and some of their trees have survived… but I’ve tested this both ways multiple time (I have a lot of azaleas btw), azaleas respond quicker and with more backbudding if one leaves as much foliage in place on the terminuses as possible. The theory from the old masters is this practice keeps the sap flowing up the trunk and limbs, hastening recovery.

2. Don’t water for 2-3 days before wiring, (and keep the tree out of the rain! it helps make the wood more flexible.

3. Overwire with your wire (aluminum) and lay the wire on properly.

4. Don’t obsess about strict rules for style…. there aren’t any for azaleas!

5. It takes guts to style a nursery azalea! When you cut off any branch, use a knife or chisel to create a smooth, flush, slightly convex area and be sure to cut paste.

Ok… enough said….. Here’s a couple images of a few of the small nursery azaleas I just wired a couple weeks ago… just for for thought. I hope this helps.

Momo no Haru - note the option for a full cascade wired in on this tree


Taiyo


Chinzan


Chitose Nishiki


cheers
DSD sends

 

[yashu]

Thanx DSD! I was hoping you’d chime in as I’ve been gleaning nuggets of knowledge from some of your other azalea posts.


Is it best to wait until after flowering to make my big cuts as I’ve read elsewhere and an associated question, since I’m not to concerned with flowering this season can I preemptively remove the flower buds, then do the work and in essence accelerate the burst of growth that generally follows flowering? I guess I don’t know if it works that way or not.

I was looking at the plant and taking your advice into account and discovered a couple branches with a nice downward arc but the corresponding upward branches are a bit thin. I know azaleas are basally dominant, am I setting myself up for failure by having what would in essentially be a leader also be very thin? I don’t want my choices to bite me in the butt down the road if possible (I do know some of that is inevitable, but I’d like to keep it to a minimum ) my tentative plan most closely resembles your first photo, also a momo no haru. Thanks again!

 

[yashu]

…also, the roots completely fill the nursery can that the tree is presently in. How much of the root mass is safe to remove (if any) to change the angle and get it into a different container.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

You are welcome.

Now is the very best time to start for me, likely you are a bit later for the weather to moderate for repotting unless you are running a warm greenhouse.

What you can do now is clear out some of the absolutely “Don’t need” stuff. But be conservative, plan ahead

Personally I like to repot first, then do the primarily wiring after flowering. Then secondary styling and primary touch up next spring. These jobs are 5 years to a decent bonsai and 10 years to a really good bonsai. But you can wire now and repot as soon as another month later…. not my method. I like to time my insults.

Personally I flat out water wash/chopstick etc the entire root mass of each nursery tree and repot in Kanuma/pumice 90/10..… to avoid root rot etc issues… but your choice……. root washing is ver messy and I really don’t like wire in the way when I do this... for multiple reasons.

After a root wash you will find you end up with an amazingly small root mass that will fit in most 6-7” pots. See image of small nursery azalea root washed (chopstick in back).

best
DSD sends

 

[River's Edge]

View attachment 426539
I picked up this Momo no Haru satsuki and a few other pre-bonsai from Bill Valavanis’s International Bonsai Arboretum website. The trees all came well packed and healthy and fit the most part are very nice plants and great starters. This one however, has at a loss. Fortunately I have some time before the season is right to style azalea but I’m lacking an ideas. The trunk is arrow straight and then it’s just a bush. I’ve seen them potted up and sold like this and was never a fan so I’d appreciate any input on styling ideas that anyone can offer. I have seen another thread on here from someone who sources the same material from the same place but it did t get much into what progress was achieved on the design front. The foliage is very fine, much finer than any of my other azaleas so I’d really like to make this work. Do I just pick one of the myriad of branches to be a new leader and settle on upright or informal upright?

Perhaps another perspective for consideration. Simply put, grow it out to a much thicker trunk after changing the planting angle! That amount of straight section is much less of a problem in a larger tree and the continuation of the trunk line will provide taper and movement over time. Consider something along this line if it suits you.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

@River’s Edge is absolutely correct about growing your satsuki out as an option... and it’s a really nice styling job btw…

If you like this option, you will like have to use successive bigger pots rather then in the ground in you growing zone and use a similar wintering over spot as for a bonsai potted style. Momo no Haru is only rated as cold hardy to zone 6a in the ground which would translate to a theoretical minimum of +5F or above for the first year in a pot. So still very hardy. (However some folks I’ve worked with absolutely won’t get their potted satsuki’s colder then 15F in pots, most won’t let them get colder then 25F.

Growing out, you’ll want to do any bends early… I just looked up the Japanese Dictionary advice for Momo no Haru….“…hardy, wood rather hard so wire the tree early! “

The usual bonsai alternative is to style it now, but up pot the tree in successively larger containers every year for the first five years and the every three years. The tree will still grow bigger, yet not as big as a landscape grown tree.

Cheers
DSD sends

 

[Shibui]

Good informal upright starts with heavy reduction pruning. You'll need to be comfortable with throwing away more than half your initial purchase. Better to look on reduction pruning as adding value instead of throwing away half the purchase cost.

Apologies for the incomplete virtual drawing. I can't work out how to rotate but have shown pruning cuts in red. Can't see enough of the remaining branch to suggest any further pruning but the 2 major cuts should be enough for an 1 year anyway. Bonsai development is rarely a one off session. More likely a series of strategic sessions as the tree grows and develops.

Prune off 2 larger branches to leave the smaller one - trunk TAPER and bends. Don't worry about no branch at the bend. Azalea are very good at new shoots, sp after heavy pruning so it is more than likely there will be many new shoots at that point to develop future branches if you need them.
Replant at an angle, rotated 15-20 deg left so the lower trunk is not vertical. At a glance it appears surface roots are higher on the left so this tilt should be easy without exposing or removing hight roots????

These ideas based only on the one and only view of the tree given. From other angles other possibilities may become apparent. Always check on the real tree before implementing online ideas.

 

[River's Edge]

Often the best results are twenty years down the road and the most common mistake is to to think of the now rather than future!
For Bonsai enthusiasts this often means trying to style a tree now when the next step is to grow and develop the trunk.
The opportunity to point this out was the reason I posted.
Particularly with trees that back bud so easily, one does not always need to wire down original branches for design. Very simple to thread graft azalea. The tree I posted above was a trunk portion of a landscape tree. The pads all developed from either buds that emerged or thread grafts.
This point of view is much easier to accept when one studies early pictures of the same tree in relation to designs that come into being over time.
The first picture below shows how a small starter plant like yours can become a larger trunk through grow out! The next picture shows how the landscape plant can progress to a bonsai tree in seven or eight years. In this case a transition of thirty seven years from starter plant. Six footer in the landscape bed, 28 inch in the bonsai pot. 4 inch base.

 

[yashu]

I’ll get some more photos when I get home but just for a bit of verbal description I can tell you that there are 5 roughly equal sized trunks that all split off at the exact same spot at the top of the main trunk. The angles differ slightly and I’ve chosen 2 that I find the most desirable and have good secondary and tertiary branching. I’m not afraid to cut this way back so long as I can realistically maintain health. This isn’t my first bonsai rodeo but my first attempt at satsuki which honestly feels like a whole different monster.

The roots are right to the surface so no matter what I do I’ll be digging into them. I don’t think I can avoid digging into the rootball if I’m going to change the angle. How can I do this in the most minimally damaging way?

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

…well you bury the root ball a bit deeper… not sure what the concern is?

If the tree is in a standard azalea peat and bark mix and you intend to keep it in this, you will have a year at best before it begins to break down and get soggy.

If it’s about the Azaleas roots being damaged, properly cared for the roots are as resilient as the foliage. If soggy or otherwise… the azalea’s Achille’s heel

Here’s an example of a nursery tree root washed about a year ago…. this tree was also initially cutback and primarily styled last year. It’s being made ready for slip potting in the next larger container two days ago, with the edges loosened up… I had to force it out of the pot.



Best
DSD sends

 

[Tums]

Sorry to hijack the thread, but since azaleas have the tendency to grow whorls of branches from the same point like in the original post, are they ever styled as brooms? I don't think I've seen any examples of that and all the styling advice is usually for something closer to informal uprights, so not sure if there's something that discourages broom azaleas.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Not stepping on the thread… this question is certainly appropriate for this thread, after all @yashu is asking for ideas on how to style his tree.

There are no rules for azalea styles… there are plenty of folks who desire to impress centuries old conifer rules on other types of trees. This situation is evolving over time… but not without controversy …

There are generally accepted design guides that help one to produce an aesthetically pleasing tree and they work in most cases.

The most important thing is that the tree is pleasing to those who have it. For example my wife loves this little Kazan, once knocked over at Van Veen nursery, roots exposed, still lived and grew up from there.

What style might this tough little very slow growing decades old Kazan be? South African flat crown meets negari? Doesn’t matter, she loves it! It ain’t pretty, but speaks a tale of adversity and resiliency.


cheers
DSD sends

 

[yashu]

Most of the younger, low $$$ azalea I see at the bonsai places around here are broom style. Much like my tree with the section of straight trunk the only difference being some pruning for branch selection and wiring to provide a “spread” in the branches.I think places like Brussels and Bonsai Outlet carry them as well. It’s most likely the easiest aesthetic to accomplish with these trees.

 

[yashu]

Thanks again DSD, you answered my question.

Well here’s hoping I didn’t do too much damage to the roots in the cleaning process. Unfortunately I discovered a slight learning curve to cleaning the peat/bark out of the root ball. At the very least I’ve learned another thing going forward. As with everything else in bonsai, patience is key.

It’s been placed in new soil at the angle I wanted so now it’s just about crossing my fingers and waiting for spring to do it’s thing. I suspect I may have to put off pruning for another season due to the disruption I’ve cause the roots.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Glad you made a start of it. The hardest is doing your first group and crossing your fingers for a month or two.

Given my first year experience root washing, I’ll wager the lil guy will perk up in 6 weeks, given good weather and that you can easily get away with some pruning now and do the rest after flowering.

Next you ought to look up Riverbend Gardens in NH and pick a couple of their Satsuki… they do a nice job of pre styling!

Best
DSD sends

 

[yashu]

I’ll do an update after some recovery time. Thank you for the heads up on Riverbend. I will look them up and pay them a visit. It would be nice to have something where I won’t be looking so far ahead for results.

 

[River's Edge]

I’ll do an update after some recovery time. Thank you for the heads up on Riverbend. I will look them up and pay them a visit. It would be nice to have something where I won’t be looking so far ahead for results.

Consider the neighbours who may be changing out their landscape and have older specimens that have outgrown their flower beds. Can often be a source of excellent mature Azalea for redevelopment.
For example turning the first photo into the second photo in five years.