Multi-Color Satsuki Azalea Tips/care/info

Nybonsai12

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There are so many varieties of Satsuki Azaleas that it can make your head spin. From what I've read there are some that are more cold hardy than others, there are some that are more vigorous growers than others and there are some that tolerate more sun than others.

I'm particularly interested in varieties that produce multiple color flowers meaning some solids of each color and then flowers that are a combo of the two. There are quite a few varieties that fit this description. Can anybody tell me if the multi-color varieties are more or less cold hardy, more or less vigorous or more or less sun tolerant? or does it vary even further between them

And then my next question would be regarding care in keeping the tree able to produce multi color flowers. I assume that care has to be similar to narrow petal varieties like Kinsai in that you have to prune a certain way or one color will become more dominant? Or is that not the case and the tree will produce what it wants where it wants without rhyme or reason?

Anybody input is greatly appreciated.
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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Cold hardiness, this really is individual by individual named cultivar. The multicolor, multiple pattern variations trait has been bred into both relatively cold hardy azaleas, and into even more tender azaleas. You list yourself in zone 7a, which means most satsuki will be hardy when planted in the ground in your area. In a pot, you always loose a zone of hardiness, so in a pot, Satsuki that are hardy to zone 6a would be okay without heat being used in your 7a winter protection. Pots set on the ground out of the wind, should be winter hardy. "Should", myself, I am in zone 5b, I like using unusual pots for azalea, these pots are not reliably freeze-thaw proof. I protect all my azaleas, putting them in a well house that is dark, no light, but stays between 32 & 40 F, (0 to 4 C). Even though they are evergreen, if temps are below 40 F, (4 C), having no light does not cause any problems. I do have a fan running 24/7 in the well house to keep air moving and eliminate fungus problems. Still air is bad.

So summary - there is no blanket winter hardiness statement you can make about satsuki with the variable color patterns. Some are, some are not hardy.

For the next question, it is useful to find on line or books to give you the ''formal'' description of named varieties of Satsuki. This is if you want to be strictly correct. These descriptions, like "conformation to breed" scoring in dog show circles, will tell you what the "correct" percentage of dark selfs, and light colored selfs should be. A self is a flower of uniform color. Most of the multipattern Satsuki produce a certain percentage of single color light and single color dark flowers. Usually the dark is at a lower frequency. Callahan's book is out of print, but if enough requests come in Stone Lantern might get another printing authorized and available. At about $20 it was a great deal, current used prices are way out of line compared to its value. It won't have varieties developed after the first printing. So find as much info as you can about the "conformation to breed" for you named Satsuki, so you know what you should be aiming for. Note, just like the sectors of dark color on an otherwise light colored flower, the presence or absence of flecks of color is important in conformation to cultivar description. These flecks, sometimes call jewel marks also will vary in frequency. Keep track of whether they are supposed to be there or not.

Second, before pruning for conformation, remember young plants do not display the "mature" color pattern. It is very likely you won't see the dark colored selfs until the tree is over 5, sometimes 10 years old. So "conformation pruning" is not a big issue on young trees in training.

If you can't find official cultivar descriptions to give an idea of what good conformation looks like, remember, you want some of each color pattern.

I have 'Akemi no tsuki', as best as I can tell the ideal is about 75% of the flowers should be snow white, about 20% should be the various color patterns, and about 5% should be the dark, scarlet selfs. I will prune to try to maintain this. NOTE: usually, if at all possible, the apex of the tree should be predominantly the light colored self. Or a mix of the light with a few of the pattern flowers.

Branches that seem to produce all light colored flowers often will at some point start throwing the mixed patterns. Where sectors of the flower will be the dark color. This is especially true of young trees. You might identify a branch that never seems to throw the other colors, these should be marked, by a piece of colored wire, or yarn, of a bread twist tie, and then reduced or removed if you are trying to keep all the color patterns. For the light selfs, it takes more than two blooming cycles to be certain it is only throwing the light color. If you root a cutting from the branch that only throws the light form, you will have lost conformation to the cultivar name. Apparently in the nursery trade, Waka ebisu was propagated from the self, and most 'Waka ebisu' from landscape industry show only the solid dark form. But buy 'Waka ebisu' from a satsuki importer, where they were propagated for conformation in Japan, and 'Waka ebisu' will have flowers with dark sectors, dark selfs, and light coral pink selfs and occasional light coral pink sectors. So all colors from a dark salmon to pale coral pink can appear. In addition, 'Waka ebisu' is a hose in hose double. The trait is inconsistent on young plants, but should show on every flower in a mature plant. It is a 'flower in a flower' in terms of how it is double.

The dark selfs, like the full petal reversions of 'Kinsai' and 'Kegon' can take over. Once a branch begins producing only dark selfs, it will never (? I've been told never???) never show the light selfs or the multicolor patterns. Prune out branches that only throw the dark selfs, and if you root these cuttings they will never show the lighter colors, and should not be labelled with the cultivar name, because they don't conform.

In a Satuski, ideally the dark colors appear where one might want to have a shadow. Especially a branch dominated by dark colors, is okay if it is low in the tree where a shadow would be appropriate. Think a billowing thunderstorm cloud, cumulonimbus cloud. The dark should be on the underside. Or the dark should be scattered like stars or jewels. Yeah, poetry is not the same as pruning directions.

A branch that produces mixed marking flowers, colored sectors, is the most valuable to keep. Cuttings from this type of branch will be able to produce all the colors. The branches that only produce light colors, or only dark colors are less important, and as the design permits should be replaced with branches that maintain the whole range of flower forms.

That's all I can tell you. There is no reliable way to tell which branch will produce which color flower that holds true over multiple cultivars. Once you have had a cultivar for a number of years, you might notice a slight difference between branches that produce dark selfs, branches that produce multicolor flowers, and those that produce all light color selfs. But those subtle differences will be unique to that cultivar and could not carry over to other cultivars. You just have to get to know your own tree.
 

Nybonsai12

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Thanks for the info Leo! I will have to read it a few times to get all of the good stuff...

It's funny but overwintering isn't something I'm terribly concerned about. My unheated garage has been good the past 4 or 5 years. it stays above freezing but around or below 40. My bigger concern would be getting a beautiful tree with multiple color flowers and then permanently losing some of the colors.

As usual, appreciate your input.
 

shinmai

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Leo referenced Callaham's book, which is an absolute godsend, but hard to find. It may, though, be available through your public library system. Another fascinating text is from 1984, entitled "A Brocade Pillow: Azaleas of Old Japan". It's Creech's translation and commentary on the original six-volume monograph by Ihei Ito, written in 1690. Ito was a successful nurseryman and gardener to nobility. He wrote about tsutsuji and satsuki varieties in cultivation at the time. The fascinating stuff is in Creech's intro, and the frequent commentary inserted into Ito's translated text, connecting the original to current names, identifying varieties no longer in existence, etc. It contains an excellent dissertation on how the hybrids came into being in the first place. At the time of Ito's writing, azalea hybridization had already been taking place in Japan for many decades.
 

Harunobu

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I'm particularly interested in varieties that produce multiple color flowers meaning some solids of each color and then flowers that are a combo of the two. There are quite a few varieties that fit this description. Can anybody tell me if the multi-color varieties are more or less cold hardy, more or less vigorous or more or less sun tolerant? or does it vary even further between them

This depends on the species on which the hybrids are based first, on the individual variety second. If the leaves are more like R.indicum, they are generally more cold-tolerant. If the leaves are more like R.tamurae , they are less cold-hardy. I don't know if that makes them more sun tolerant. One would think that smaller leaves means they are more sun tolerant. I think vigor is a more individual property. I'd say the most vigorous satsuki azalea are those that are crosses of R.indicum and R.kaempferi. But in general, R.indicum are slower-growing than R.tamurae.

And then my next question would be regarding care in keeping the tree able to produce multi color flowers. I assume that care has to be similar to narrow petal varieties like Kinsai in that you have to prune a certain way or one color will become more dominant? Or is that not the case and the tree will produce what it wants where it wants without rhyme or reason?

No, it is genetics. Presumably, essential genes for pigment production are defective because they contain a transposon. While the tissue grows and cells divide, these transposons can cut themselves out of the gene, restoring the function of the gene and turning on pigment production in that specific cell. And if that cell keeps dividing, all daughter cells will have the same functional pigment gene. This is why you see stripes in flowers. And this is why usually you go from a plain white flower to a progressively more coloured flower, until it is solid in color. But you don't get white stripes in the solid color flower. Or get white flowers on a branch with only solid coloured flowers. So yes, you would want to make sure that the entirety of your plant doesn't lose the defective gene with the transposon removed. The odds of it jumping back into the same pigment gene are tiny. That said, I would say the issue isn't as rigid and binary as Kinsai. With kinsai, it kind of seems inevitable that the mutation will revert. With color, color intensity will still cluster and is still a one-way street. But it is more of an issue that once you take a cutting you make sure it still is able to produce all the flower variations of the parent. Often, a cutting has reduced flower variation. And not so much that you have to prune carefully or else your plant will turn solid coloured. If your bonsai has a problem with colour variety, it happened early in the development and you are kind of stuck with it. And if you are selecting cuttings and they have three flowers, the cutting with the three plain boring flowers will probably be a better representative of the cultivar's range of variation and the cutting with the three brightly coloured flowers. So during development, one wants to make sure the base tissue of the plant all give rise to white flowers that have the potential to mutate to the full range of flowers. A major branch being reduced in variation usually isn't considered an issue. Which is why a satsuki plant is clearly clustered in terms of color intensity; flowers variations don't occur completely randomly on the plant.
 

keri-wms

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So I’ve got what WAS a multi colour Satsuki (pink/white and mixes), I over-pruned it when I was younger and lost the white and now have 99% light pink with a single dark pink which I’ve marked so I don’t prune it...BUT I have a second all white plant grown from an early cutting! So I’m tempted to graft some white back if possible, seriously fiddly though due to the thin cambium...
 

Harunobu

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GJ on rooting an all white cutting. Since the plant was white, it should still have a lot of white tissue. Not sure if it a bonsai or a plant, but it might be that if you prune it back to very little, ie prune away all the branches that now only produce pink, it will regrow new branches from tissues that still are genetically white. And you get white flowers, plus pink when it mutates/the transposon jumps out again.

Grafting would work, but would require successful grafting. Now you have to make sure that if you get an all-pink branch on your white cutting, you prune it off completely (at some point, at least). It is actually not pruning that will give you an all pink plant over time. Imagine that every new shoot it grows has a 1% chance of turning pink. Next year, all your flowers will be on shoots that grew this year, and had a 1% chance of turning pink. Since the chance of a pink branch going white is maybe 0.0001%, eventually it will be all pink, unless you prune away the pink.

If you get a dark-pink branch on your new all-pink azalea, you should prune it off if you want to keep the pink and dark-pink mix. If you don't. That branch will always only produce dark pink. And then another branch will become all dark pink. And then if you don't prune that one, the next one, until it is all dark pink and you would have to cut back into old wood to get light pinks back (or potentially whites).
 

keri-wms

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Thanks for the great reply, I’ll need to re-read that a few times to absorb it properly! :)

Here’s the original:
77964382-B2A8-4FFB-817A-B2452E48C795.jpeg

And next to the cutting plant, it actually has flecks of pink on two flowers:
778728D7-E182-43A1-95D7-58432066AA80.jpeg
D170B6DB-2251-4FC1-BFE1-28EFEF1A9C36.jpeg
...and the other fleck...
1682E33C-DD25-41A8-8C68-8F3E6F317C40.jpeg
 

Harunobu

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Every time a cell divides, there is a chance for going from white to pink. That's what you see when you have a pink streak in your white flower. For all practical purposes, the change of pink going back to white are zero. Which is why you don't have white stripes in your pink flowers.

But those same mutations can happen in any tissue, even if they don't express the petal pigments. Imagine, you have such a streak in one of your branches. and then a new shoot grows exactly from that pink streak. Any flower on that branch, or one of it side-branches, will be all-pink. But if a branch had come from a region just before or after that pink streak, it would have been white flowers, with some pink streaks, on those branches.

So once you get an all-pink branch and prefer a mixed-branch, you could go in and prune back that entire branch, hoping you cut it back to a point where the tissue is still genetically white. Some people think that the pink tissue will grow back into the tree and turn white tissues pink, but I don't believe that without solid evidence.

Looks like a 'Gyoten', btw.
 
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keri-wms

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Thanks again! I’d really like to cut it back to scale with the rock it’s on, but the rick is the size of a single flower....but then if I might gee some white back in the process it would be worth trying. I could cut back all the light pink, keeping that single darker pink, and see what I get?
 

Harunobu

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The dark pink is to pink as the pink is to white. Eventually, all flowers will go dark pink as well.

If all you cared about was getting the white flowers back, you would cut back all branches.

As for the rock and the flowers. You are never going to get the rock to grow or the flowers to shrink :). So that ratio is set. Of course, tree-to-flower ratio can be changed by allowing the plant to grow bigger. But that changes the rock-to-tree ratio.

If you have a branch that needs to be cut back for proportion reasons, I would try to start with that and see if indeed you get white flowers back from that. For example, the long shoot on the lower left. If you had shown me just this picture, I would tell you that probably this tree is from an all-pink cutting and the hopes of getting white flowers is probably zero. But you say you had white flowers on it. But if it was just a white branch on a part of the trunk, and the entire trunk is actually all light pink, then pruning back those branches won't bring you white back. Imagine a flower that is 2/3rd pink and 1/3rd white. That may have been your trunk all along. And you had a branch on the 1/3rd white-part of the trunk. So you thought you had a good mix. Then that branch mutated to pink as well. So pruning back to the trunk will not magically turn your trunk back into 100% white. It may be 2/3rd pink. So it may be that the best you can do is to get back one branch that has white flowers.

So I'd be conservative in sacrificing bonsai quality or tree health in trying to get white flowers back. That may be a ship that has sailed. Unless you have a good idea of which tissues of the tree are programmed for white flowers, it is pretty much a Hail Mary that pruning back hard all branches will actually give you back white flowers. Old pictures of that tree could help.

I'd keep the dark pink branch, for now as it is just one flower. But once you get a dark pink somewhere else, consider pruning away that entire branch. That is the way you keep a balance. You wait for a certain new colour to emerge. You keep it. Then when it emerges elsewhere, you get rid of the larger new colour branch completely so it becomes the base colour again. And you wait for a new mutation somewhere else. But in your case, it being (near) the apex as well; you don't want to remove your entire apex and regrow it, since this is an azalea/scrub, and not a tree. So one thing more to consider.
 
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Deep Sea Diver

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But those same mutations can happen in any tissue, even if they don't express the petal pigments. Imagine, you have such a streak in one of your branches. and then a new shoot grows exactly from that pink streak. Any flower on that branch, or one of it side-branches, will be all-pink. But if a branch had come from a region just before or after that pink streak, it would have been white flowers, with some pink streaks, on those branches.

Hi @Harunobu!

I‘ve been following this thread and it is very interesting for a science teacher to read. However you completely lost me in the above paragraph.

I spoke with Tom at Nuccios about this very topic. He said I should take cuttings of the branches with flowers that have stripes on them to get all three color variations in the new satsukis produced .

This same topic is also addressed in their catalog:
“Many of the Satsukis offered here characteristically produce several different colors of flowers on one plant. The most common pattern for such varieties is to produce three different colors: a white striped with the other two colors (which we call "#1"),a light color ("#2"), and a dark color ("#3"). (Their won numbering system)
While it is this erratic sporting quality that makes these varieties of Satsuki so beautiful and fascinating, it is this same quality that presents difficulties for propagators as well. We attempt to take our cuttings from stock that is the #1 version of a variety. However, because our cuttings are taken from new growth not yet bloomed, it is very possible to cut from a #2 or #3 branch. A cutting grown from a #2 branch will generally produce two colors, the light color (#2) and the dark color (#3), while a cutting taken from a #3 branch tends to produce only the dark color.“

Can you please clarify?

Next, to extend this... the image of the satsuki shown by @keri-wms on the left possess a white flower with a pink stripe. Wouldn't it be possible to graft on cuttings of this area (approach or thread.... ) to the now pink satsuki‘s trunk to ”rehabilitate” this satsuki to produce all three color variations?

Thanks,
DSD sends
 

Harunobu

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Ok, let me try again without pictures. If you don't understand, I will have to do some MS Paint. Sorry if it is confusing.

Let's go to your Nuccio's example. It is entirely correct. Let's say you have a white with stripes flower. That means that the branch is a 'white branch'. If you propagate from that branch, indeed you can expect to get a white flowering cutting, with stripes in the flowers.

The point is that stripes are a mutation where a transposable genetic element removes itself from a gene essential in the pigment biosynthesis pathway. As long as the transposon is in a pigment gene, the gene is bad and the pigment enzyme won't be produced. When the transposon cuts itself out, it restores the code for the enzyme and that tissue will again produce the enzyme pigment, restoring the entire pigment synthesis pathway, resulting in pigmented cells.

But, a transposon can remove itself in any tissue. It doesn't need to happen in petal cells. I think may be the crucial point. When it happens in a petal cell, you will see the stripes. But if it happens in a new shoot, you don't see anything, until you get flowers on that shoot. But let's imagine you have a magical lens that lets you see these stripes in all tissues on your azalea, not only flower petals. Imagine you can see the genotype directly, rather than the phenotype that you only see in the flowers. Then, you will see these stripes on your azalea all over the plant, in every tissue. Roots, stems, leaves, and flowers. And now they will be 3D sections of tissue where all cells have restored pigment cells. So let's say you have a 'pink stripe' in a branch. A sidebranch could grow from exactly the center of this pink stripe. If it does, you get a branch that has pigment synthesis restored in all cells. And you will get only pink flowers.

If you cut off that sidebranch entirely, a new sidebranch may develop from backbudding just next to that 'pink stripe' in the main branch. So this new branch grows from the white 'flower area'. And then the branch will all be cells with the transposon still in the pigment gene, disabling pigment production. But also allowing for the possibility of the transposon to jump out, creating pink stripes.

If you have an azalea that is all pink, you don't know how far back towards the roots the cells that still produce white flowers are. At some point, a cell has the transposon jump out, and all daughter cells will be pink. It will start as a sector/streak/section of a branch. But if sidebranches grow from that, all cells will be pink. So with the tree of keri-wms, we would have to cut back the pink flowering branches to try to find tissues that still grow white flowers. The main branches may be 20% pink, or 50%, or 100%. We don't know, unless we go back in time and look at a picture from the past. Or unless we try it and prune back and see what colour flowers come from tissues further back.

The difference between light pink and dark pink is likely a transposon disabling a transcription factor that increases pigment production. But that doesn't seem entirely right because it usually seems the flower has to go to light pink first, then to dark pink. If it was an independent transposon, you should also sometimes see a jump from white to dark coloured in one step. In fact, that would be problematic, because the pigment intensity mutation cannot be pruned away because you can never see it. And you would lose the intermediate light pink when trying to propagate because you can never select for the broken transcrption factor form. More likely, it is a transposon jumping out of both genes on both chromosomes, doubling the expression.
 

Harunobu

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Since keri-wms reports that she had white flowers on this plant, the core of the plant must still largely be white, but with pink sectors (in the core itself has pink sectors, not just the flowers coming from the core). And eventually, all her branches became pink.

But it may also be that the shoot used for the cutting contained a large stripe throughout it, and it was already majority pink. And then one of her main branches came from the small bit of white tissue she had on that cutting. And she though 'Hey I have a nice mix because I see both'. And then the shoots from her white branch also became pink. And that would mean that if she cuts back that formerly white branch back into white cells, she will get white flowers on that branch. But the same will not happen on any of the other branches. And if she prunes away the white branch off completely, all her backbuds may come from pink areas and the percentage white cells on her entire tree may drop.

Since her plant is quite small, it seems this change from white to pink happened quite quickly, which suggests that maybe she had a lot of pink tissue to start with. But her new plant should be perfectly good. You see the difficulty in propagating sporting azalea (and one of the reasons why they aren't so popular in western nurseries because you have to throw away all the bad sports). I actually have a huge 'Conversation Piece' that I bought when it wasn't blooming. And it is entirely a solid pink. What a disappointment!

Yes, a graft from the white plant would introduce fully white tissue. The pink tissues of the pink plant will not chance the white graft to pink, under this transposon theory. The white graft will have the same propensity to eventually go pink. But just as when you graft an ornamental Japanese maple on stock, the graft will have the ornamental leaves. Eventually, the white graft will produce flowers with pink stripes. Then entirely pink flowers. And then branches that are entirely pink, etc. And that will happened the quickest if you don't prune at all. By selectively going in and removing branches that lost the ability to produce white flowers, you maintain all 3 variations. And you don't go to a plant with only light and dark pink. Just like Nuccios says. 1 gives 1, 2 and 3. 2 gives 2 and 3. And 3 always stays only 3.
 

keri-wms

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(Pink flowers and a daft name, but I’m a he none the less! :p )

The tree would ideally be pruned to about half the size so it matched the rock is what I mean, but then the flowers would be even more out of proportion to the tree! Maybe that’s why it ended up being exported to the UK 25 odd years ago?
 
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Harunobu

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(Sorry about that. Yeah that wasn't the most feminine hand I have ever seen. Just got sick about avoiding pronouns.)

I am wondering if with your tree as it is, and the rock at the center, maybe you can create a half circle silhouette by bringing the branches down further? Just by wiring up the branches so they almost reach the soil line. You get a greater area of plant silhouette that way, and maybe by keeping most flowers at the edge of your plant, you can get kind of 3 concentric half circles; rock-plant-flowers.

The flower obscures the trunk and the roots of the azalea now, so I can't quite see where it starts, but in the concept I propose the plant no longer sits on top of the rock as it hangs down behind the rock as well. Just an idea. I think that will make the flower appear less large without having to make the plant taller or have the rock magically turn bigger.
 

keri-wms

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Thanks for the thoughts, annoyingly I created layered branches but the scale is too small - but I might cut back to them and forget the scale issue during flowering.

This was the tree in 1993/4!!!
5621D0B1-7193-44AC-BD4A-07FC273752C8.jpeg
 

keri-wms

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And now with the hidden structure, I did shorten the trunk years ago compared to the original design, before I let it get overgrown (the roots were eaten at soil level so I had to let it run to save it).
C0233722-E579-417E-BBCA-20ADBC924E44.jpeg
2EE23351-D91C-431C-9CE7-D5BB85323422.jpeg
03885DEF-203A-405C-A6F8-4C98AD47981B.jpeg
 

keri-wms

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Er, the flower SHAPE is different too it seems! Maybe I pruned back branches that had been grafted? Seems unlikely..
 
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