New Azalea , is it suitable for bonsai?
- Thread starter KKBonsai
- Start date
Pitoon
Imperial Masterpiece
Yes, there's something hidden deep in there......you need to find it.
Bonsai Nut
Nuttier than your average Nut
Any tree (and for that matter most plants) can be trained as bonsai. However some material has more of a headstart than others.
When assessing any material for its suitability for bonsai, start with the part that is the hardest to fix and takes the longest time to develop. This is the area know as the "nebari" - the surface roots and the base of the trunk where it meets the soil. Then evaluate the trunk line - whether it is interesting and has decent taper (depending on your future design goals). For the most part, ignore the branches and the foliage except to the extent that they indicate the health and strength of the material. They are the easiest to change and arrange - grow or replace. Many times people make the mistake of focusing on the foliage first, and ignoring the fact that the rest of the material has major flaws that are not easily addressed.
When assessing any material for its suitability for bonsai, start with the part that is the hardest to fix and takes the longest time to develop. This is the area know as the "nebari" - the surface roots and the base of the trunk where it meets the soil. Then evaluate the trunk line - whether it is interesting and has decent taper (depending on your future design goals). For the most part, ignore the branches and the foliage except to the extent that they indicate the health and strength of the material. They are the easiest to change and arrange - grow or replace. Many times people make the mistake of focusing on the foliage first, and ignoring the fact that the rest of the material has major flaws that are not easily addressed.
Forsoothe!
Imperial Masterpiece
There's no there there. The whole top higher than a couple inches branches all wrong. Every branch diversion either breaks from a vertical, or from an inside bend, or to a vertical. That means you can't keep both branches, you have to choose one or the other to keep and you still have an awkward movement that you are keeping. I never, ever advise a chop below the first branch. Plant this in the garden and use it to learn how to air layer. Go buy another plant and this time look at the first 12 inches for branches that divert in pleasing ways. Everything over 12" is a shrub. Everything under 12" is potential bonsai. The first 6" is make-or-break. You can choose to keep or cut off branches there, but you can't grow new major branches there, only minor branches from there-on. Learning how shop is Bonsai 100. Bonsai 101 is learning how to bonsai.
Grovic
Mame
Give it a try, it may not be the best starter, but you will get something out of it, at the very least you'll learn something, if in the future it is a "mediocre" bonsai, you'll know why and you'll know what not to do.
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Nursery azalea, purchased from a landscape nursery, always look hopeless!
Watch this video by John Geangel. He takes azalea, much like the one you have, and turns them into extraordinary bonsai! The key is timing! Do what John does in the spring:
Here’s a “chalk talk” video:
And here’s one with John in action:
Pitoon
Imperial Masterpiece
I have to disagree. This azalea does have potential, albeit one would have to start with a bare trunk and go from there. @Leo in N E Illinois azalea's contest entry is a prime example of making a tall flowering azalea bonsai. Over 12" or under 12" has nothing to do with "potential bonsai" it's plant specific. If a plant over 12" has potential go for it, if a plant under 12" has potential go for it. Also depends on the final size of the bonsai one wishes to create.
I've attached what I personally would do with this plant marked in red. Cut back to the trunk and hope buds emerge in the right spots. In about 3yrs i think it could make a good foundation for a nice bonsai. Of course this takes time a patience.........most people don't have either.
_#1_
Omono
The OP's plant has the same potential as some of your 20 years "trained" trees
Just saying...
Mike Corazzi
Masterpiece
Ah yes, the reply that kicks nuts.
Forsoothe!
Imperial Masterpiece
I urge all of those out there in La La Land to post some of your photos of Azalea bonsai over 12" tall. Especially welcome will be those with long, bare, skinny trunks. I will be pleased to critique them for you and world. The prime characteristic of Azalea is skinny branches. Going back to zero and rebuilding major branches is a thankless task taking years, and years, and years, and damn few come here to be told that they will have "something" if only they persevere for years and years and years. The advice I give is intended to steer people to success within the time frame of what I think is within the attention span of somebody new to the game. Success within the foreseeable future. Americans are well known to have the attitude of, "I want it now", and my mission is to keep them in the game with early successes to build upon.
The time spent on creating something worth having out of the OP could be spent on better material creating something worth having, sooner. The difference is not time, the difference is the price of material.
The time spent on creating something worth having out of the OP could be spent on better material creating something worth having, sooner. The difference is not time, the difference is the price of material.
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Pitoon
Imperial Masterpiece
Why not go buy one that someone else has put years into creating.....and then call it your own creation. There is a difference in buying a bonsai and MAKING a bonsai.
What is the real essence of bonsai to you? Do you want to take a short cut and find better material to start with? Do you want to challenge yourself and create something truly yours?
Not everyone is 20yrs old, not everyone is 70yrs old either..............some have time to play, while others don't.
What is the real essence of bonsai to you? Do you want to take a short cut and find better material to start with? Do you want to challenge yourself and create something truly yours?
Not everyone is 20yrs old, not everyone is 70yrs old either..............some have time to play, while others don't.
Mellow Mullet
Masterpiece
Challenge accepted, especially since I am from La (Lower Alabama), I will post when I get home from work tonight. Maybe you could post some of your azaleas.
Forsoothe, your combination of ignorance and arrogance is astounding!
Please go to John Geangle’s YouTube videos and you will see several videos of azalea he’s created. He has done hundreds just like he shows in the videos I posted in this thread. Azalea are in fact very fast to develop given the right growing conditions. Your climate, they may be slow. I don’t know, I don’t live where you do, so I don’t have any experience there.
But, azalea in general respond very well to drastic pruning. They will produce new branches off the trunk, and then the soft shoots can be wired easily.
Dies it happen overnight? No, but neither does any kind of bonsai. Bonsai DO take several years to develop. If new people to the hobby are given proper instruction from the start, they will not be frustrated after several years to find out that they “have been doing it wrong” for years!
bunjin
Mame
Of course it is suitable. I have never been in a class where the the instructor refuses to work with the material a student brought in. There are always possibilities. Ignore the noise.
Pitoon
Imperial Masterpiece
Total time: 4months and 12days........I wonder what it will look like in 3yrs from now.
https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/azalea-2-glenn-dale-violetta.44943/
11MAY20 - In original 2gal trade pot
22SEP20 - In a 4.5" x 6" unglazed bonsai pot
https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/azalea-2-glenn-dale-violetta.44943/
11MAY20 - In original 2gal trade pot
22SEP20 - In a 4.5" x 6" unglazed bonsai pot
HorseloverFat
Squarepants with Conkers
I’ve noticed you do not say many positive things.. It seems like all of “your points” could be fashioned around a more “approachable” LESS “abrasive” context.. with even LESS effort than the effort it takes to be IMpolite... It almost SEEMS like it’s on purpose.
I respect you as a fellow human and TinyTree person, also appreciate/respect your (and anyones) knowledge/experience. and have had no real altercations with you... I just don’t understand, I guess.
Harunobu
Chumono
Sorry for the bad pictures, I just took some photos with my phone in badly lit room at night.
But maybe you mean something like these?
The paradoxical thing about the variety that the OP has is that it has coarse upright growth, unlike these examples. And this growth habit is why it as a garden plant grew into a single trunk. Which is why it has at least a manageable trunk. But the downside is that it will be much harder to get finely branched foliage pads. And if this cultivar had been of the type that does grow like that, like these examples, it would have 5 to 10 trunks as a garden bush, all of equal diameter.
So a possible answer would be:
1) Yes, it is suitable for bonsai. It has a single trunk.
Or another possible answer would be
2) No, it is not suitable because it likes to grow large leaves with long shoots
Or a possible third
3) It will take too long to grow a tapered trunk with the golden ratio trunk diameter-to-height.
In the end, this is actually the natural growing behavior of this azalea. And it makes it more tree-like than most random azaleas that you'd find in local gardens. But one could take this one and try to bring the foliage closer to the trunk, and create some foliage pads, making it similar to those examples. Because this one likely does not backbud on the trunk very easily, as it would have done so naturally with such an unshaded trunk, it doesn't seem like a prime candidate for trying to fatten the trunk for better taper. You'd have limited options for sacrificial branches.
But you can grow a 85cm azalea tree with a 9 cm trunk circumference and get features in Satsuki Kenkyu for having a great azalea bonsai. If you want to win the head price, yeah you need something like this:
And this starting material isn't really suitable (but neither would any other 'starter' material).
Besides that, there are even more thin azaleas if you include flower display/meika azalea, or (usually blooming) bunjin style trees.
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Forsoothe!
Imperial Masterpiece
There is no bonsai form that is more difficult to fashion than bunjin. You need material that lends itself to that end, and it takes especial skill. I have attempted a few over the years and none approached success. The OP is not a candidate. Not the tree and not the wannabe. To coach someone new to bonsai toward that end with bad material is cruel and doomed to failure. If that's immaterial to you, then that's on you.
Pitoon
Imperial Masterpiece
I really don't understand your logic. Just because you failed doesn't mean they will.
Forsoothe!
Imperial Masterpiece
I agree, you don't really understand.
