kale
Shohin
Thought this was a great watch. In a nutshell, they are saying to prune annually and remove inner growth to promote lengthy branches to fatten the trunk up in the shortest amount of time. Make sure to turn captions on in english.
Video about thickening satsuki
- Thread starter kale
- Start date
Glaucus
Chumono
This is a non-traditional method that clearly works very well (in their climate and probably many other places). However, it should be noted that it produces this specific style of bonsai.
Which is a bit atypical for satsuki bonsai. And I mean the traditional ones here exclusively, ignoring the flower display style. Usually, there would be a very clear single dominant trunk with branches much closer in that basically just act as plateaus for the foliage pads. This method seems to produce almost multi-trunked bonsai with indeed lengthy branches. In a way, it is the more natural way and a better compromise between an actual azalea bush and a treelike bonsai.
Not sure at all if it would ever be an option to get rid of almost all the branches and make it the more traditional single trunk. There would be huge scars left over. And the top azalea bonsai displayed in Japan are surprisingly scar-free (though I often wonder about the back).
Maybe this style of pruning is the best way to skip the flowering period and go right into growing. And indeed, there is the issue of an azalea becoming very refined and having more and more flower bud density on the entire plant. Leading to more and more ramification very rapidly. If you get 3 or 5 shoots from the base of a flower bud, then in year 1 if you have 3 flower buds, in year 3 you would have between 27 and 125 flower buds. And theoretically in 10 years you would have between 60 000 to 1 million flower buds. It would go with x^n where x is the number of new shoots at the base of the flower bud ( I have seen 7 or 8) and n is the number of years. It will blow up really really fast. Way faster than the famous chessboard and kernels of grain, doubling for each new square. It is a exponential. Of course that can't happen, so it means weak branches will have to die and the number of buds will reduce. to 2 or 3. Which is why pruning could help keep the ramification low and the number of flower buds limited.
And you would prune in late winter to prevent flowering and to get a full uninterrupted season of growth. You indeed get these very long shoots that you see on many of the azalea in that video. Those you get either from pruning. Or from very strong buds that grow from the base of the plant. Usually spontaneous back-budding on a bald trunk where there is no shading by other branches.
Preventing flowering in autumn is not really a thing, it seems. You have to prune out the apex just as the flower bud is about to form. Maybe this is an actual technique. But it is not straightforward at all. You have to know the timing. And you get no feedback on if your timing was right. And it may induce new growth that won't harden off before first frost.
I do wonder a bit though about keeping more leaves on the plant. What about a variant where you remove all branches except say 2 at the end. And you only remove the flower buds from those 2. You can pinch them out without removing any leaves using your fingers & nails. This will still result in the emergence of many shoots from the same spot, the base of where the flower bud would have been. And maybe this type of growth is just different from the growth you would get when a single dormant bud activates a bit lower on the branch, and just extends as a single shoot. As opposed to 3 to 8 shoots coming from the apex. And that the only way to get this type of growth is to prune all leaves of. Then again this could probably be managed by in mid spring removing the weaker new shoots and reduce them to 2. But that would be very labour intensive.
That said, old leaves don't stay on the plant for very long anyway. They usually drop late spring. So maybe this is not worth the additional labour. You have way way more work, and your only advantage is that you keep a few old leaves on the plant for 1 to 2 more months.
Another technique the Japanese use is when they do a hard prune is that they prune the leaves, but just keep the petiole with a tiny bit of leaf only. So you prune the flower bud, prune the apex, and keep a petiole of say the last two leaves that stayed there during winter. And then the new shoots come from the auxiliary bud at the base of the petiole.
Which is a bit atypical for satsuki bonsai. And I mean the traditional ones here exclusively, ignoring the flower display style. Usually, there would be a very clear single dominant trunk with branches much closer in that basically just act as plateaus for the foliage pads. This method seems to produce almost multi-trunked bonsai with indeed lengthy branches. In a way, it is the more natural way and a better compromise between an actual azalea bush and a treelike bonsai.
Not sure at all if it would ever be an option to get rid of almost all the branches and make it the more traditional single trunk. There would be huge scars left over. And the top azalea bonsai displayed in Japan are surprisingly scar-free (though I often wonder about the back).
Maybe this style of pruning is the best way to skip the flowering period and go right into growing. And indeed, there is the issue of an azalea becoming very refined and having more and more flower bud density on the entire plant. Leading to more and more ramification very rapidly. If you get 3 or 5 shoots from the base of a flower bud, then in year 1 if you have 3 flower buds, in year 3 you would have between 27 and 125 flower buds. And theoretically in 10 years you would have between 60 000 to 1 million flower buds. It would go with x^n where x is the number of new shoots at the base of the flower bud ( I have seen 7 or 8) and n is the number of years. It will blow up really really fast. Way faster than the famous chessboard and kernels of grain, doubling for each new square. It is a exponential. Of course that can't happen, so it means weak branches will have to die and the number of buds will reduce. to 2 or 3. Which is why pruning could help keep the ramification low and the number of flower buds limited.
And you would prune in late winter to prevent flowering and to get a full uninterrupted season of growth. You indeed get these very long shoots that you see on many of the azalea in that video. Those you get either from pruning. Or from very strong buds that grow from the base of the plant. Usually spontaneous back-budding on a bald trunk where there is no shading by other branches.
Preventing flowering in autumn is not really a thing, it seems. You have to prune out the apex just as the flower bud is about to form. Maybe this is an actual technique. But it is not straightforward at all. You have to know the timing. And you get no feedback on if your timing was right. And it may induce new growth that won't harden off before first frost.
I do wonder a bit though about keeping more leaves on the plant. What about a variant where you remove all branches except say 2 at the end. And you only remove the flower buds from those 2. You can pinch them out without removing any leaves using your fingers & nails. This will still result in the emergence of many shoots from the same spot, the base of where the flower bud would have been. And maybe this type of growth is just different from the growth you would get when a single dormant bud activates a bit lower on the branch, and just extends as a single shoot. As opposed to 3 to 8 shoots coming from the apex. And that the only way to get this type of growth is to prune all leaves of. Then again this could probably be managed by in mid spring removing the weaker new shoots and reduce them to 2. But that would be very labour intensive.
That said, old leaves don't stay on the plant for very long anyway. They usually drop late spring. So maybe this is not worth the additional labour. You have way way more work, and your only advantage is that you keep a few old leaves on the plant for 1 to 2 more months.
Another technique the Japanese use is when they do a hard prune is that they prune the leaves, but just keep the petiole with a tiny bit of leaf only. So you prune the flower bud, prune the apex, and keep a petiole of say the last two leaves that stayed there during winter. And then the new shoots come from the auxiliary bud at the base of the petiole.
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