Japanese satsuki festival & azalea bonsai videos thread 2023

Glaucus

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The first satsuki bonsai show video for 2023 just dropped on youtube
From the official 'Satsuki Channel' on youtube, which I believe are actually people from Tochinoha Shobo, who put out the satsuki dictionary and satsuki Kenkyu magazine as well.
The channel also has a ton of other satuski videos, mostly with English subtitles. I believe for this one, the English subs are not yet ready and may be added later.

People can post other videos of the 2023 shows here. The one in Ueno station is probably the other main one to look out for in the coming weeks. Several people usually go there and record videos of the bonsai there.
So feel free to post if you see it before I do.
 

Carol 83

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The first satsuki bonsai show video for 2023 just dropped on youtube
From the official 'Satsuki Channel' on youtube, which I believe are actually people from Tochinoha Shobo, who put out the satsuki dictionary and satsuki Kenkyu magazine as well.
The channel also has a ton of other satuski videos, mostly with English subtitles. I believe for this one, the English subs are not yet ready and may be added later.

People can post other videos of the 2023 shows here. The one in Ueno station is probably the other main one to look out for in the coming weeks. Several people usually go there and record videos of the bonsai there.
So feel free to post if you see it before I do.
Amazing, thanks for sharing.
 

Deep Sea Diver

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Two things I noticed, one is a very important point.

The pots used for satuski, even for show, are very deep nowadays. Most potters in the US I’ve run into so far rarely create pots deep enough for azaleas. The better pots sold in the most popular on line bonsai shops tend to be too shallow for good azalea growth.

The flowers can be arranged a number of ways for show. The Kagetsu in full bloom has a traditional separation, yet others ways are shown.

cheers
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JudyB

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I found it strange that some were shown without flowers. Thanks for sharing!
 

Glaucus

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I found it strange that some were shown without flowers. Thanks for sharing!

They might be late flowering varieties. They discussed the temperatures/weather in Japan a bit in the video. People try to time their exhibition trees with temperature control to hit exactly the date of the exhibition. And I believe this year it is also a week earlier than it was in the past. And they apparently had some warm weather, until suddenly it became colder. Maybe they missed the window.

But personally I love the look of the traditional bonsai with only 10 to 20% of the flowers opened, and the remainder just candles or green buds.
I was also a bit surprised that they gave one of the major awards to one of the trees that wasn't in flower yet.
 

keyfen06

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Here's a pretty long livestream I found of a satsuki exhibition in Kyoto. It is all in Japanese, but nevertheless there's still some pretty nice trees to look at.


This one is a bit shorter, and shows satsuki at Makino Botanical Gardens in Kochi.
 

Glaucus

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And here a walk through of the entire Ueno show from the first video:


Kanuma satsuki festival is right now, so there should also be videos of that one.
 

Glaucus

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Here's a pretty long livestream I found of a satsuki exhibition in Kyoto. It is all in Japanese, but nevertheless there's still some pretty nice trees to look at.

It is a shame the other guy is barely audible, and that I barely recognize what is being said. But they are discussing how the trees are made. The guy explaining believes he is allowed to touch the trees, so he may be the organizer or one of the artists.
For example, for the Yata no Kagami neagari one, the guy explaining is showing the roots, and the guy is asking how many plants there were originally were, and the guy explains that they are the roots, not different plants. If I follow what they are saying.
 

keyfen06

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Here's the Utsunomiya Show video from Satsuki Channel. All three major awards went to 'Korin' which was interesting.
 

keyfen06

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Another one from Satsuki Channel of the Satsuki Bonsai Exhibition at Omiya Bonsai Museum in Saitama.
 

Deep Sea Diver

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Official video of the Kanuma show:
Looks like a lot of newer cultivars in the first 12 minutes and right near the end. The trunk on the one below, minute 21ish, is decidedly a Dan Robinson gnarly award winner. Gotta love the technique to create this…. Looks like multiple fused trunks

IMG_1715.jpeg

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Glaucus

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There are actually a few trees at the Kanuma show of foreign bonsai artists. They are shown in this video, starting 0:40

Not entirely sure if those are works of people living in Japan. Or work they made while in Japan. Or if they actually transport trees for the show to Kanuma, and then back home.
They also often have this tree that Kanuma gifted to the pope/the Vatican, but they show it in flower in Kanuma. You'd think they want to put it on display at the Vatican itself.
So I guess the pope gave the gift back, or something. Anyway, that's their way to try to make it (look?) more international.
So if Dan Robinson has some azalea, not impossible to get them displayed there.

You can actually look up whose tree is whose, because in that video the numbers are on them.
That one at minute 21 is by Saito Toshiyuki, (斉藤敏行, assuming I got the right writing for the kanji).
And it won the Grand Prize given by the president of the Kanuma Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

I have a suspicion that quite a few of the satsuki bonsai are fused. They have some gnarly features on these trunks, and they often seem twisted and wound up.
One good example in the video I just posted is the Korin at 2:00. These ridges in the trunk, how would you get those otherwise? Azalea trunks want to be smooth.
However, I have never seen a Satsuki Kenkyu article explaining this method. Might be a 'secret' technique/
 
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Glaucus

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From the new flowers/new variety results, 剣/Tsurugi at 1:36 won 'Flower of Excellence' awarded by the Enthusiast's Satsuki Association. It looks a lot like 'Kizuna', so I wonder if that's one of the parents.
While 炎鵬/Enho, at 2:50 won the New Flower Grand Prize awarded by the Director-General's Award, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries
This azalea is a little bit interesting in that it seems to be a large flowering round petal flower, which in the last 40 years has not been so popular.
Like a callback to the days where they crossbred satskuki with maruba/R.eriocarpum blood with Belgian indica, like 'Gettoku' and 'Koka'. Enho looks more similar to a Robin Hill azalea like 'Sir Robert' than to say 'Kozan'.

Actually, now that I look better at the document ( linked here and all in Japanese), all of them are 'grand prizes' or 'prizes of excellence'. And several of them are awarded. So no award seems superior to the other.
 
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