One-year progression of a chinzan satsuki shohin

[Chuah]

I bought this shohin Chinzan satsuki azalea from David Kreutz of Satsuki-En in 04/2014. Since it was a newly imported tree, I let it grew for the rest of the year to gain strength. In 03/2015, I drastically removed unwanted branches and cut back the rest to virtually no leaves to encourage back budding. A lot of adventitious buds popped up along the branches and on the trunk within 2-3 weeks. By mid-May there were a lot of new growths and secondary branches. I let it grew with the usual azalea maintenance steps of leave thinning and cut back.

I will follow up with photos of the tree in 10/01/2015 in the next thread. The shohin has a very tight compact growth with inner branch ramifications. This afternoon, I thinned the growth and removed all the buds to get ready for over wintering.

To develop a tight growth with inner branch ramifications, one has to cut back severely in spring.

 

[Chuah]

These are the photos of the chinzan shohin on 10/01/2015 and 10/20/2015.

 

[barrosinc]

wow! that tree is going places!

 

[just.wing.it]

Nice, I can't wait till spring so I can start working my azaleas.

 

[GrimLore]

Nice work! Also a very nice Blog! Welcome aboard

Grimmy

 

[Cotyledon]

Wow great thread and pics. I have to get some azaleas going.
What is the screen in the soil surface about?

 

[jk_lewis]

Now you need to work on getting rid of the unnatural pointy top.

 

[rockm]

Nice tree. I bought one from David two years ago--a shiro ebisu about the same size. I've got to thin it out ahead of winter too. Thanks for the reminder.

 

[barrosinc]

I really really want to import an azalea!!!

 

[johng]

Looks good.... forget the flowers now and prune, prune, prune for the next two growing seasons. Then you will have some decent pads created or at least enough ramification to form them.

 

[The Bonsai Herald]

Dave Kreutz is over my dad's house in St. Louis this morning working with him on cleaning up our azaleas for the fall.

Your tree is looking great! I would let it grow strong next year without any cutting, and then wire the long shoots out next fall. Then the following spring you can cut it back again. Should be ready for show in a couple years if you use that process. Also work on healing those wounds some more and you'll have a great little show tree!

 

[johng]

Looks good.... forget the flowers now and prune, prune, prune for the next two growing seasons. Then you will have some decent pads created or at least enough ramification to form them.

I thought this was confusing as I reread...
Looks good.... forget the flowers for now and prune, prune, prune for the next two growing seasons...

 

[johng]

I would let it grow strong next year without any cutting, and then wire the long shoots out next fall. Then the following spring you can cut it back again. Should be ready for show in a couple years if you use that process. Also work on healing those wounds some more and you'll have a great little show tree!

That would be good advice if the branches needed more heft...if you look at the pics I am not sure that is the case?? Looks to me like they need ramification??

I am not sure the OP was really looking for advice anyhow

 

[Chuah]

Wow great thread and pics. I have to get some azaleas going.
What is the screen in the soil surface about?

Kanuma is very light when dry, the screen prevents washing them away during watering.

 

[Jeremy]

That's already shaping up to be a powerful little tree, I wish I could find Azaleas like this

 

[Chuah]

Now you need to work on getting rid of the unnatural pointy top.

The top will be gone next year, and the tree will eventually get a rounder apex for a more mature look.

 

[Chuah]

That would be good advice if the branches needed more heft...if you look at the pics I am not sure that is the case?? Looks to me like they need ramification??

I am not sure the OP was really looking for advice anyhow

You are right, this tree needs to develop more ramifications the next two years and to develop a more mature look.

 

[Chuah]

Dave Kreutz is over my dad's house in St. Louis this morning working with him on cleaning up our azaleas for the

David was giving a workshop in our convention couple of weeks ago. I showed him the tree, and he used it in his workshop, and told the attendees to prune, prune, prune to develop the tight growth. He also told them azalea grows like a weed after pruning, which is true if done at the right time.

I bought two trees from him. He has a very beautiful large Hikari-no-Tsukasa raft. It was very tempting but I don't have much experience growing this cultivar in our hot weather. I have a Hikari-no-Tsukasa whip for about 2 years, so far it seems to do well but I did not want to take the risk on such a beautiful specimen tree. Old trees are much harder to adapt to harsh growing conditions.

 

[Chuah]

That's already shaping up to be a powerful little tree, I wish I could find Azaleas like this

Probably Arthur Robinson of Western Australia can help.

 

[Chuah]

Looks good.... forget the flowers now and prune, prune, prune for the next two growing seasons. Then you will have some decent pads created or at least enough ramification to form them.

Have seen your YouTube Satsuki videos, great work.