Glaucus
Omono
Some pictures showing some progression from a cutting to a larger plant.
This is a bad solid pink only sport of 'Hilda Niblett', which is basically a maruba satsuki bred in the US, belonging to the Robin Hill hybrid group.
I can recommend this cultivar. It is very vigorous with huge flowers.
Note, the approach I was taking with this cutting was minimal pruning. So there is a directional pruning, not a whip
I believe I took the cuttings from the mother plant back in 2011.
The first picture I have, it is already pretty sizable, in June 2013:
If you count back in growth from the tips, you can see the green shoots first, which grew in 2013. Then there are the brown lignified shoots, which green in 2012. So you can see that once the cutting rooted in late summer 2011, in 2012, it started to backbud all over.
And I did not remove any of those buds. I just let everything grow. This might have been one of the first azalea cuttings I ever rooted.
So with my 'let's not prune to get the fattest trunk the fastest'-approach, you can see I needed to step in in June 2013 to prevent reverse taper. If I had done nothing, it would have added a new layer of growth in 2014, with 3 to 5 news buds elongating from every branch. This would fatten up the entire core of this cutting uniformly, because there is no apical dominance. Additionally, I would get new buds growing on the trunk and lignified branches. Meaning I have 10+ branches growing from a core blob that just sits above the soil come 2015.
So the pruning approach is to reduce nodes with 3 to 5 shoots to 2s. Where one of the two is the leader, and allowed to elongate, and the other is pruned back to 1 or 2 leaves. This sets the pruned shoot up to become a branch.
Here is the area at risk of reverse taper when unpruned:
So back in 2023, it was pruned like this:
Then wired:
I believe I did a similar pruning in 2015, but no pictures. None until 2023.
Then, it was planted in the ground for a few years. This year, it had to be dug up from the garden. I wanted to move it to a sunnier spot. However, I noticed it had a really good root flare.
It was actually a bit surprising that the roots seemed to only grow along the surface of the soil and in the top humus layer. And not grow downward. But that's good for bonsai.
So I repotted it into kanuma, removing as much soil as possible. I ought to have made pictures, but I did not.
It flowered fully late May 2023:
The root flare is actually almost the size of the pot. I did decide to fully cover the roots with kanuma, since it is transitioning.
Despite me keeping all the flowers, no flower bud terminated.
To see the development of the base (picture taken after removing the flowers at peak bloom):
Late winter 2024 will be a good time to reduce it to the main leader some more. It needs to be taller, because of the flower size.
So then in 2024 and maybe 2025 also, it can grow unrestricted.
I have a trunk base, movement in the main leader, a root flare, it is in kanuma, and some taper already.
So this is how the directional pruning can progress on a satsuki when you do not decide to grow it into a whip.
This is a bad solid pink only sport of 'Hilda Niblett', which is basically a maruba satsuki bred in the US, belonging to the Robin Hill hybrid group.
I can recommend this cultivar. It is very vigorous with huge flowers.
Note, the approach I was taking with this cutting was minimal pruning. So there is a directional pruning, not a whip
I believe I took the cuttings from the mother plant back in 2011.
The first picture I have, it is already pretty sizable, in June 2013:
If you count back in growth from the tips, you can see the green shoots first, which grew in 2013. Then there are the brown lignified shoots, which green in 2012. So you can see that once the cutting rooted in late summer 2011, in 2012, it started to backbud all over.
And I did not remove any of those buds. I just let everything grow. This might have been one of the first azalea cuttings I ever rooted.
So with my 'let's not prune to get the fattest trunk the fastest'-approach, you can see I needed to step in in June 2013 to prevent reverse taper. If I had done nothing, it would have added a new layer of growth in 2014, with 3 to 5 news buds elongating from every branch. This would fatten up the entire core of this cutting uniformly, because there is no apical dominance. Additionally, I would get new buds growing on the trunk and lignified branches. Meaning I have 10+ branches growing from a core blob that just sits above the soil come 2015.
So the pruning approach is to reduce nodes with 3 to 5 shoots to 2s. Where one of the two is the leader, and allowed to elongate, and the other is pruned back to 1 or 2 leaves. This sets the pruned shoot up to become a branch.
Here is the area at risk of reverse taper when unpruned:
So back in 2023, it was pruned like this:
Then wired:
I believe I did a similar pruning in 2015, but no pictures. None until 2023.
Then, it was planted in the ground for a few years. This year, it had to be dug up from the garden. I wanted to move it to a sunnier spot. However, I noticed it had a really good root flare.
It was actually a bit surprising that the roots seemed to only grow along the surface of the soil and in the top humus layer. And not grow downward. But that's good for bonsai.
So I repotted it into kanuma, removing as much soil as possible. I ought to have made pictures, but I did not.
It flowered fully late May 2023:
The root flare is actually almost the size of the pot. I did decide to fully cover the roots with kanuma, since it is transitioning.
Despite me keeping all the flowers, no flower bud terminated.
To see the development of the base (picture taken after removing the flowers at peak bloom):
Late winter 2024 will be a good time to reduce it to the main leader some more. It needs to be taller, because of the flower size.
So then in 2024 and maybe 2025 also, it can grow unrestricted.
I have a trunk base, movement in the main leader, a root flare, it is in kanuma, and some taper already.
So this is how the directional pruning can progress on a satsuki when you do not decide to grow it into a whip.
