Rawlyn's Azalea 2020-2025 Contest Entry

[rawlyn]

First time poster with limited bonsai and azalea experience (killed my first effort in a few short months 2 years ago - have managed not to repeat that performance (yet) with the kaempferi "Mimi" I started this time last year), but wanted to give this contest a try anyway. Advice and critiques always welcomed.

Picked up this 1-gallon Getsutoku (satsuki) at Lowe's today. Trunk of the individual with the nicer flower seems to have some good movement, and might lead to a decent slanting or semi-cascade if the branches cooperate - and if there are no nasty surprises when I separate the two trees for repotting and pruning. Unfortunately, that will have to wait until I either get hold of some kanuma or gather up enough courage to try repotting into some kind of random mix of the akadama, pumice, perlite, sphagnum and/or turface I actually have on hand at the moment.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

I looked this up and there are some awfully nice flowers on this lil guy!
Here’s Nuccio’s data on your selection. My thought is that you should use this data to plan your eventual Bonsai style.
White, variegated pink and salmon stripes with many variations and solid colors. Very large flowers, single, wavy petals. Medium grower 1.5 -2’ in 10 years with bushy, spreading growth. Late blooming Late May - June/July
I’m no expert, yet there are a couple things that I’d recommend you look at closely, in order of priority, with the above data while choosing your eventual design options before and while you cut. I’ve neglected these thoughts, resulting in my eventual despair! ( You can’t fight Mother Nature!)

Growth rate​

Growth habit​

Flower size​

That’s my two bits. I really hope it helps you!
DSD sends

 

[Harunobu]

Wow, more entries are coming up. Pretty cool to see how popular azalea are here on BonsaiNut now. On other bonsai fora, there haven't been azalea posts for months or years.

Start calling it 'Gettoku' and that already makes you more pro than Nuccio's or Lowe's. Yeah, this is from the era that huge flowers were the most in-fashion thing.

First thing would be to figure out why you killed your 'Mimi' and not do that.

 

[rawlyn]

I looked this up and there are some awfully nice flowers on this lil guy!
Here’s Nuccio’s data on your selection. My thought is that you should use this data to plan your eventual Bonsai style.
White, variegated pink and salmon stripes with many variations and solid colors. Very large flowers, single, wavy petals. Medium grower 1.5 -2’ in 10 years with bushy, spreading growth. Late blooming Late May - June/July
I’m no expert, yet there are a couple things that I’d recommend you look at closely, in order of priority, with the above data while choosing your eventual design options before and while you cut. I’ve neglected these thoughts, resulting in my eventual despair! ( You can’t fight Mother Nature!)

Growth rate​

Growth habit​

Flower size​

That’s my two bits. I really hope it helps you!
DSD sends

Thanks, DSD. Some food for thought there to consider before I tackle the process of separating and repotting these. My kanuma arrived yesterday, and I had planned to repot and prune as soon as that happened. But the plants had other ideas, and pushed about 7 new blooms this week, with more on the way, so it’s not something I have to do immediately. At the least I can take some time to get a better feel for the severity of any poor relative proportions. The blooms are definitely on the large size, clearly not ideal - but to my admittedly untrained eye they don’t seem horrifically outsized compared to other azalea bonsai I’ve seen:



Then again, I have lots of rose of Sharon surrounding my place, which are covered in beautiful, but enormous flowers every August, so my perspective is likely warped. I have one of these I dug a couple years ago in a grow box now as a long term project, so maybe what this azalea teaches me on aesthetics will help me with that one, which I know will be a problem for both blooms and foliage reduction.

If it looks like this is a bad fit for the contest, I picked up a pair of Korean poukhananse azaleas at the same time as the gettoku. So, I have options (much to ponder. . .)

Mike

 

[rawlyn]

Wow, more entries are coming up. Pretty cool to see how popular azalea are here on BonsaiNut now. On other bonsai fora, there haven't been azalea posts for months or years.

Start calling it 'Gettoku' and that already makes you more pro than Nuccio's or Lowe's. Yeah, this is from the era that huge flowers were the most in-fashion thing.

First thing would be to figure out why you killed your 'Mimi' and not do that.

The one that I killed was a big box white bloomer that came without a variety name. I pruned it severely (while it was still flowering), transferred it immediately into a *much* smaller bonsai pot, then left it in full sun. It looked fine for several weeks, then crisped up almost overnight.

The ‘Mimi’ has been happily living in a large colander since Spring 2019, while I try to thicken the trunk and plan the way forward from some severe radial branching. It can be seen in the background of the middle picture above.

Is “gettoku” the correct name and “getsutoku” incorrect?

Thanks,

Mike

 

[Forsoothe!]

I have the Korean as a hedge which I encourage to grow tall, and it does. May be an internode length problem for bonsai. What does Leo say?

 

[rawlyn]

I have the Korean as a hedge which I encourage to grow tall, and it does. May be an internode length problem for bonsai. What does Leo say?

Fwiw - these are Poukhanense 'compacta' - which suggests they may have been bred for size reduction. There's no obvious internode issue on the two in the pot right now, at any rate. But, it looks like I've got some more research projects ahead before I get to committed to either of these paths.

Thanks for the feedback.

Mike

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Fwiw - these are Poukhanense 'compacta' - which suggests they may have been bred for size reduction. There's no obvious internode issue on the two in the pot right now, at any rate. But, it looks like I've got some more research projects ahead before I get to committed to either of these paths.

Thanks for the feedback.

Mike

It looks like you are already learning a lot to me, which is the whole point of this contest.

For me, I think you should keep the faith on your Gettoku selection as almost all azaleas that folks are picking up have embedded flaws.... “among them wheel branches, multiple azaleas planted together so the nurserymen can bring their plants to market faster etc”. But that’s just me, you are certainly free to choose another entry.

I think the idea is to understand what the challenges you will face are and work around these. Your challenge with big very beautiful showy flowers, for example might be offset by cutting down the number of flower buds on the azalea in the winter before the final year. You have time to test this in the next years. It’s bushy growth might allow more space for its flowers too, vis the compact growth of my entry Kikisui, which has a very tight, dense growth pattern.

cheers
DSD sends

 

[Harunobu]

Could be best to select a single trunk and to just grow that as tall as possible, considering the flower size. I mean, if you trunk chop this like some others here have done, the height of your tree could almost be the same as the diameter of the flower. I know Gettoku as a parent of other satsuki, but I have never actually seen a Gettoku bonsai. Not even a meika tree. At least, not as far as I remember.

 

[Pitoon]

Welcome to the contest! Nice selection, I wish I could find Satsuki at my local big box store. I see a possible twin trunk?

 

[rawlyn]

Got the two trees separated and repotted, then gave initially styling. Roots were worryingly sparse, and significantly interwoven among the two trees, so will need to keep a close eye and fingers crossed for the remainder of summer, but if it survives, this one will be the contest tree.



Will probably eliminate at least one or two more branches later on, but not sure enough to do more damage today, so will watch how they develop for a while first.

And the other:



Mike

 

[rawlyn]

Welcome to the contest! Nice selection, I wish I could find Satsuki at my local big box store. I see a possible twin trunk?

I was pleasantly surprised to find this when I went to Lowe’s. They actually had three or four on hand, and I only recall ever seeing one Satsuki in all previous the times I’ve looked over the past few years. Maybe the Covid quarantines have altered the garden center market to my advantage. .

Mike

 

[rawlyn]

My entry is feeling the wrath of tropical storm Isaias this evening. Another nearby plant blew over and cleanly took off a small branch.
Before



After

Wasn't sure I wanted to keep it for the long term, but would definitely have preferred to make the decision myself at some time of my own choosing.

Anyone else in the path of the storm?

- Mike

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Hi @rawlyn , If you haven’t had a chance to yet, please to fill out the azalea media (substrate) poll.
My thanks and please disregard this note if you’ve already polled.
Cheers!
DSD sends

 

[rawlyn]

All set!

 

[Pitoon]

Spring is here and your azalea could be blooming (depending on your location) or starting to leaf out with this season’s flush……it’s time for updates!

I would also like to add at this time we have 3 prizes to award. Many thanks to @Forsoothe! and @Deep Sea Diver for donating. I am also donating a prize as well.

If you are no longer interested in continuing in the Azalea Contest, please let me know so we can close your thread, thanks.

 

[rawlyn]

Posting a (long overdue) update on my cascade Gettoku. Here it is as of this past Halloween (31-Oct-2020):






Kept it outside, but under plastic, all winter here in coastal Rhode Island without any obvious issues (a pretty mild winter even for here). Then pinched off all flower buds several weeks ago to favor branch/trunk growth.

And here it is as of tonight:

 

[rawlyn]

Decided to fully commit to the cascade path with the contest tree today, and give it a severe haircut to eliminate peripheral branches that appeared to have been developing much more quickly than the core cascade itself. Hopefully, this will encourage some buds to pop in a few more aesthetically helpful spots.

Here is the tree before:



Top view of three trunks. Only rightmost :



And after:

 

[rawlyn]

Had pinched off the flower buds from the contest tree earlier in the spring, but did get some blooms from the “spare” that i separated from it last year.






Mike

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

A couple pieces of data for you to possibly process.

I looked up Gettoku in the Japanese dictionary. It states that pruning is rough…. this usually means that you might want to use the branches you have if possible.

One standard precaution: while pruning this type of Satsuki, leave foliage on the end of any branch you prune…. kind of like pruning a pine where one keeps foliage on the end of a branch and waits for a back bud to get established before cutting back more. In this case it keeps the sap flow moving and will have a better chance for good back budding

It also implies to set the branches early. The implication is that the branches are harder to set, usually due to being brittle. Thus wiring while young is recommended.

The other recommendation is to style large, in order to give space for the flower size. For larger sized flowers on Satsuki Bonsai folks often prune the buds so the remaining buds are spaced too give room for the flowers to bloom, without overlapping. I believe this process is done in spring

Finally, attached is a photo of a fairly rare cascade of a Juko Satsuki for your information.

Cheers
DSD sends