Thickening azaleas

barrosinc said:
I purchased the stuff you told me too yesterday.
Should I cut the flower buds off now in winter?
Click to expand...

Logically this might make the azalea grow more vigorously, since it would not be "wasting energy" making fowers. However, I would NOT, because the flowers are my entire reason for growing azaleas!

I wait until AFTER the flower show in the spring. Then I shear and trim when flower petals begin to drop (the spent flower stamens can also be removed by pinching).

Alternatively, you can defoliate as Andy, The Satsuki Enthusiast, described in his blog (I linked to this earlier in this thread). Think about doing this with one of your azaleas next spring so you can see the results of the two techniques. Again, I would wait until the flower petals begin to drop next spring.

I am eager to see your pics of your new azaleas.
 
Thanks 0soyoung.
I have three of these: Purple Splendor

IMG_2987.JPG

1) nice trunk, not huge but nice. -> bonsai
2) decent trunk, bigger than pencil size. Want to make it grow, so will cut off flower buds now. -> future bonsai
3) Nice plant, I don't see it making a bonsai in the short run, hasn't got enough trunk but has a lot of leaves and flower buds ->garden/cuttings

and one of these Hinomayo:
img63924124.JPG

1) has so many closed flower buds and tiny leaves (REALLY TINY) so much I recieved it and thought it was a deciduous variety. I think it will look like that pic when it blooms. I would love to reproduce it and maye my garden full of them. -> garden.
 
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I just plucked like 150+ flowers from kurume 2. I left like 5 just see how they look.

Talking about time consuming tasks...
 
To encourage surface roots on satsuki place organic fertilizer near the trunk and move them out as the roots form, leading the way. I use blood, bone and cottonseed meal in tea bags but cakes or other forms also work.
This should be over moss. Yama goke if you can get it, as it locks together, but sphagnum is fine.
 
blood and bone feed are illegal here... but I will see what I can find.
Thanks
 
Resurrecting an old conversation here but, I am looking to grow out some azalea to thicken them and the part of the described process I don't understand is the value of shearing them in the spring. If you want them bigger what is the problem with totally unrestricted growth? How does cutting them back help produce girth and what should I be going for when I shear? I assume possibly cut more from sides since they are not apically dominant?
 
Aaronkslater said:
Resurrecting an old conversation here but, I am looking to grow out some azalea to thicken them and the part of the described process I don't understand is the value of shearing them in the spring. If you want them bigger what is the problem with totally unrestricted growth? How does cutting them back help produce girth and what should I be going for when I shear? I assume possibly cut more from sides since they are not apically dominant?
Click to expand...

I am not an expert but I do play with Azalea. Looking at collected plants here and comparing them to much smaller trunked Greenhouse types I can say this:

I do not collect small stock, minimum 3 inch base or nothing at all. The reason is they are all potted and the smaller stuff grows just as slow as the bigger no matter what "I" do. I am "guessing" they simply grow like a shrub, just better in ideal conditions. In our area a fairly well taken care of Azalea can hit a 3 inch base easily in the ground. I don't have much other information just telling you what I have seen.

Grimmy
 
It has been my experience that they will thicken up in a pot all most as fast as they do in the ground. I have purchased a lot of nursery stock lately, grown in pots their entire life, and most are very thick. Here is an example: http://bonsainut.com/index.php?threads/found-a-new-azalea.18584/

Grimmy is right though, it is better to start out with a decent size base than to wait for one to grow, unless you can't find one or are collecting for flowers.

John
 
0soyoung said:
Logically this might make the azalea grow more vigorously, since it would not be "wasting energy" making fowers. However, I would NOT, because the flowers are my entire reason for growing azaleas!

I wait until AFTER the flower show in the spring. Then I shear and trim when flower petals begin to drop (the spent flower stamens can also be removed by pinching).

Alternatively, you can defoliate as Andy, The Satsuki Enthusiast, described in his blog (I linked to this earlier in this thread). Think about doing this with one of your azaleas next spring so you can see the results of the two techniques. Again, I would wait until the flower petals begin to drop next spring.

I am eager to see your pics of your new azaleas.
Click to expand...

This was the original advice from Osoyoung that I was asking about. Someone else said the same thing: Shear it each year then grow... If girth is the goal why not just let grow without any cuttting? There must be a good reason.
I understand these generally are slow to thicken. I am planting out into the yard and planning to keep as landscape plants for many years but simultaneously be grooming them for future bonsai.
John, Awesome flea market find!
 
Best you can do it put it in the ground and build a greenhouse on top of it. Early springs and long autumns is what you need for more growth. They just grow slow and unfocussed. Throwing a lot of fertilizer on top of it will not make it grown faster. Sun, warmth, moisture and a lengthened growing season is what does work.

You cut branches only to prevent reverse taper or to weaken branches that get too strong.

Removing flowers becomes impossible if you grow several plants. It is not worth the effort. But if you do it, do it in October, not in April.

Then you can prune it heavily like once every 5 years or so to keep it on the bonsai track. That will slow it down a lot, but if you never prune, it will just look like that old azalea bush in that old garden in some nearby park.


There's a lot of old wives tales about specifics. But the plant does what it does. It doesn't care about labels on products or intentions of growers. It is just chemistry and physiology that dictate what really happens.
 
"If girth is the goal why not just let grow without any cuttting? There must be a good reason."

aaron, i concur with what harunobu just posted ... *total* unrestricted growth results in a large shrub but with eventual lanky trunkline(s). to zero in on that important trunk base 2"-3"-4" from the ground, the azalea *must* be pruned back IMHO to redirect growth in that zone ... otherwise, the growth & energy is wasted on non-productive lankiness and height.

i see this lanky growth over and over again in most landscape azaleas (very old material being the exception). so for the "trunking up" stage of bonsai development, i would be looking at a good hard pruning about every 3-5 years, regardless of the material sitting in a pot or in the ground. it's basically a repeating cycle of growing sacrifice branching off the trunk base until the desired girth is achieved.


respectfully,
rick
 
awesome info guys, that makes total sense to me now. I'm also going to look closer at some old landscape azalea to get a sense of what to avoid and what tendencies to train against. THANKS!
 
I bought a few small cultivars probably five years ago and put them in the ground (I forget the names off hand). They haven't appreciatively thickened at all. Then again, I haven't really been focusing on developing a single trunk by cutting off the other trunks. My guess though is that I wouldn't be that far ahead of where I am now had I started doing that from the beginning.

It really makes you appreciate the big trunks that they are able to grow in Japan. There is a lot of specialized care that goes into growing them.
 
The Japanese set up cuttings to grow into 40cm long thin whips. That is wired up and and will bud all over while it grows.

When I take a cutting I am lucky wen I can get a 15cm cutting in 2-3 years. You can let a cutting grow through a winter in a heated greenhouse and it will be fine. That gets very quick growth and you get a long thin plant that is tall and still pliable to be wired. Of course they pinch all unwanted growth (ie not at the apex).

Nursery plants are given a totally different initial growth. The paths of shaping a whip cutting and a nursery bush only converge at the final bonsai stage.
 
mcpesq817 said:
It really makes you appreciate the big trunks that they are able to grow in Japan. There is a lot of specialized care that goes into growing them.
Click to expand...
I would really love to know what this is? What is the secret ingredient that the japanese have that nobody else can replicate.

My conclussions to know:
almost unrestricted growth,
  • cutting back branches will help, I have heard it gives the plant more vigor and a lot more branches and a lot more foliage.
  • Fertilize heavily.
  • Cut of flowers before they start producing seeds. Or cut the flower buds before hand.
  • And of course make it a monotrunk to get the growth where you want it.
 
Good questions. I've started a batch of azalea cuttings and will get to play around with these ideas with the passing of time. Perhaps I need to start more cuttings. I only wished that I lived in town called Kanuma, so I'll be using lots of bark and perlite as with my pines to grow them.
 
barrosinc said:
I would really love to know what this is? What is the secret ingredient that the japanese have that nobody else can replicate.

My conclussions to know:
almost unrestricted growth,
  • cutting back branches will help, I have heard it gives the plant more vigor and a lot more branches and a lot more foliage.
  • Fertilize heavily.
  • Cut of flowers before they start producing seeds. Or cut the flower buds before hand.
  • And of course make it a monotrunk to get the growth where you want it.
Click to expand...

If I remember correctly, there is a section in the Stone Lantern azalea book that covers the growing practices. While unrestricted growth is a factor (to an extent as I think satsukis have thin bark and can't heal over big scars as readily as say a trident maple), a lot more goes into growing out the trunks. I recall that they used raised growing beds (I think of kanuma), and I think lots of time was involved.
 
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