Berra's Satsuki Nyohozan

[Berra]

May has presented temperatures ranging from 71F to 33F so far here in Scandinavia. The tree is leafing out and since the cut back earlier this spring it has actually started back budding in places it never did before.

Looks like it's on the path to its better self

 

[Berra]

The tree was brought out to the local hanami celebration last weekend, first time I put something on "display".

Lots of curios people wanting to look (and unfortunately touch)

 

[Berra]

Super short on time due to new human family member, but tree is growing like crazy this season, post hard late winter cut back.

The hole in the apex from 2019 is more or less filled out

It has been a fairly cold and wet summer, temps hovering around 70F, warmer in May though

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Congratulations! Totally understand about having a new family member… have had a number of these.

Nyohozen is looking really nice! Seems to be a good time to selectively prune foliage and branches, similar to post flowering pruning, take to two branchlets at each cluster, then back to two leaves… except in the areas you desire to grow out. Leave these alone. This will allow more light in the interior and stop growth in areas that have grown enough.

When finished look for opportunities to push back in areas where branches were too long. This process will begin refining the design.

This would be a really good time to take more images.

Congratulations once again!

Cheers
DSD sends

 

[Berra]

Thanks as always DSD! I did like you suggested a couple of weeks ago. Didn't have time to photograph until today.

I think I will wire out again to make the pads more distinct

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Awesome!

A couple thoughts. Things are progressing very well. You are doing a really excellent job, especially with pruning and keeping the tree alive and flourishing. Laying out the branches would be a good idea.

- Wondering where things are with regard to sunlight exposure … especially now as the day length and temperature are declining since white nights? Thinking up to full sun as long as temperatures are below about 29 C. With misting as possible. This will hasten bud set.

- Have wondered what the tree will look like with a bit taller crown?
Carefully laying out the branches will help you determine this as well as get a better look at the side profile. Seems a few branches in the middle towards the apex are a bit too long and will eventually need reduction… all basic housekeeping items.

- Nebari. Another important house keeping item is to curate the nebari. This means to use a wet toothbrush, chopstick and bent nose tweezer to take the moss out of the cracks between the folds in the trunk and also from the sides of the roots. (Otherwise the trunk loses definition and the roots join together in the nebari and make a big unsightly root. There are a couple on your tree in this state. There is a somewhat difficult fix for this, splitting the root, but as it’s a repotting thing and a cosmetic deal and the fix can be problematic, so this should be ignored. It is what it is …an aesthetic item.) Just focus on cleaning up what’s there a couple times a year.

- longer term item - maximize use of new growth to grow out and replace old branches. The water/nutrient pathways inside azaleas grow smaller over time. This is especially evident in older tree branches. Backbudding is not as vigorous and if not replaced the branches eventually fade away.

To do this we either saw off the branch and regrow from new shoots that come off the trunk….

…Alternately a good way to improve the longevity of each branch is to replace the smaller branches off a branch with vigorous new growth whenever possible. This takes time and one has to be aware of not pruning off the emerging new branchlets. This will allow the branchlets in a couple years to take the place of older small branches.

Your child looks lovely! We have a passel of them… all grown up now, but they were really fun to raise.

Best Regards
DSD sends

 

[Berra]

Thanks!

Regarding sun, maybe I should keep it in full sun throughout the summers? We only had one day above 29C here this year, late June.

Actually the crown was taller when I bought the tree, I did not like that design though and decided to lower it, thats when things went south with the apex back in 2020 I guess.

Thanks for all other pointers

My daughter is 4 now, "bonsai is boring, flowers are fun", she routinely says

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Great! Keep the crown as is for now then. As the tree fills in more its broad profile may tell you it’s time to grow upwards. Sometimes the trees just grow up anyways and one doesn’t notice until they look at older images.

More sun…. It’s an idea… certainly worth a try, yet a bit concerned about the duration of the sun, especially in the June/July period. Perhaps add an hour or two and see how things go?

Nyohozan is a sport of Kozan, part of the famous Kozan/Nikko family. These azaleas originated from the north of Japan. While this makes them naturally a bit more cold hardy, then don’t like the heat. Likely they aren’t so used to the long duration of sunlight in Sweden being as the northern most part of Japan is 45N vs Malmo 55.6N. (About 680 miles north)

That said, after spending years at sea in Alaska, Iceland, Greenland and the Arctic Ocean the angle of the sun at noon is a quite a bit lower up in your neck of the woods. So give it a try.

The first sign of trouble will be slower growth, red tinged edges of leaves and if way to much burn patches on leaves.

This is an image of burned patches on a rhododendron…healed as well as possible now… occurred about 90 days ago. Was redder then. Nyhozen likely would look much worse.

Cheers
DSD sends

 

[Carol 83]

flowers are fun

Smart little girl.

 

[Berra]

Now the results from the latest cut back are in. Plenty of new growth

 

[Dabbler]

What a great tree! It's been a dream of mine to move to Sweden, I live in the US and it's just too hot in every aspect of everything here now a days. great job btw!

 

[Glaucus]

Long summer days up north actually mean less sun. Not more. Going more North (on the Northern hemisphere) always means a lower daily light integral. Longer summer days do offset it a little bit. But the sun is low in the sky both during summer and winter. Very far north, it kinda rotates around near the horizon, only barely dipping below it during early summer and only barely rising above it during early winter. It is always better to be further south, have the sun higher in the sky, but have shorter days during summer.

More full sun during summer is probably good. During the growing season, just get all the light on the tree you can get. Unless you get a heat wave, because it is a Kozan-type after all. Below 30C should be fine. Maybe some canopy watering/misting/water spray to keep the leaves/soil/pot cool, but keeping that light fall on the leaves to get those sugars. You wouldn't want to waste perfectly good sunight by shading your satsuki too much when your climate's bottleneck is basically a low DLI and a shorter growing season. Unless of course a heat wave hits and you have an extreme.

 

[Berra]

What a great tree! It's been a dream of mine to move to Sweden, I live in the US and it's just too hot in every aspect of everything here now a days. great job btw!

Thanks, credits go to this forum's members for teaching me how to care for the tree.

I think there are pros and cons to Sweden as well as US (and most countries I guess).

The short season and less shiny sun compared to say Spain means slower progress here. Takes more time to get girth, ramification etc. On the flip side less need to water often, no need for shade cloth etc.

The latest major heat wave was a week or two in 2018, back then we had almost tropical weather. Otherwise temps above 86F (30 C) are very rare. Didn't get that hot in 2024 and now autumn is approaching

 

[Berra]

Cut back and wire to more or less the design I intend.

2023: repot
2024: large cut back and structural wiring
2025: flowering

I will skip flowering this year and focus on building more green.

One thing I reflect on now is that many (most) of the twigs are now young, and back bud easily when cut back. This is in stark contrast to the old lignified, leggy twigs I worked on back in 2020, they hardly back budded at all and snapped easily.

Thanks bonsai nut for the advice that got this plant in better shape

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Well done!

Looking forward to seeing what a couple years of rebuilding ramification will look like.

Cheers
DSD sends