Peter Warren on Satsuki.

[Harunobu]

I did cringe a little when first Paul Eslinger talked about 'food' and then it became clear he meant fertilizer. I mentioned Ryan Neil positively before, and when he said "What is food for a plant?" and people started answering 'fertilizer' and then he said "No!" it was such a breath of fresh air for me. And then he starts talking about "If I eat fish and chips everyday .... so I use some different type of fertilizer every time". Come on, man. Yeah, the plant won't really care too much if the fertilizer is organic or chemical, or what the specific NPK ratio is. It generates its food from water, CO2 and light. And it needs minerals from the soil. Especially nitrogen, but of course also phosphorous and potassium. And then all the trace elements like copper, zinc, magnesium and selenium. The plant needs these minerals. Whether it says 'Specialized feed for requisite royal rose gardens' or 'Bonsai fertilizer from Japan' or 'Cheap tomato plant fertilizer' on the cover doesn't really matter that much. Companies know that people into bonsai or roses or orchids are willing to pay more for fertilized than people that want to grow their own potatoes. So they brand their package and adjust price based on what the customer is willing to pay. Not what is inside.

If you use chemical fertilizer, you need to apply dilute and more often. And if you use organic, these elements need to be decomposed by soil bacteria first before they become water-soluble and available for the roots to take them up.

Ah and Paul also does not know why (satsuki) flowers sport. So he came up with his own theory of sap lines.

 

[bunjin]

I wish he had organized the program better, but a lot of useful information. He seems to somewhat agree with the Japanese in terms of the repotting methodology. I no longer carefully loosen the rootball, etc. with chopsticks and leave undisturbed areas. I basically cut the rootball back and dunk the plant in a 5 gallon bucket and wash out all the soil. My opinion is no matter what method one uses, most of the fine roots are destroyed during repotting. Azaleas when healthy will regrow the fine roots very quickly. It took awhile to have the courage to do this with old trees, but I have had very good results. Also the roots under the trunk will fuse into a big mass if they are not thinned often.

 

[fredman]

 

[Harunobu]

I wish he had organized the program better, but a lot of useful information. He seems to somewhat agree with the Japanese in terms of the repotting methodology. I no longer carefully loosen the rootball, etc. with chopsticks and leave undisturbed areas. I basically cut the rootball back and dunk the plant in a 5 gallon bucket and wash out all the soil. My opinion is no matter what method one uses, most of the fine roots are destroyed during repotting. Azaleas when healthy will regrow the fine roots very quickly. It took awhile to have the courage to do this with old trees, but I have had very good results. Also the roots under the trunk will fuse into a big mass if they are not thinned often.

Yeah, I remember people advising that with an azalea, you should carefully remove all old soil particles from the roots without damaging them. That's just not going to happen. If you really want to try that, best bet is to power blast with water. And then you see a video of a Japanese bonsai artist just tearing off pieces of rootball, trying to get rid of the rootball surface and some of the decayed kanuma. I think this is just what you have to be doing.

 

[baron]

Hmm, I seem to remember Peter giving the advice to cut out wedges when repotting. Think it was on a Mirai stream a year or so ago

 

[keyfen06]

However, if your tree was a Satsuki, wouldn't you want to know where the Ground color (solid color) branches were first and mark these (or vice versa)?

Sorry to bring up a thread from so long ago, but in regards to this comment, if all branches that produced the solid color were pruned off can the satsuki no longer produce solids / the full range of colours anymore? I remember hearing about this somewhere after I had just pruned a Mibu-no-Hana and panicking slightly!

 

[Glaucus]

White flowers should be able to produce all flower pattern variations. The red branch has no effect on the rest of the plant (I think Peter Warren may have this theory, or maybe it was only for Kinsai flower shape).\
On Mibu no Hana, you have pink flowers with a yellowish blotch/speckles and a bit of a white center? That would be the base colour.
If you have white flowers still, it is actually Eiga no Homare. So Mibu no Hana is a version of Eiga no Homare that lost all the white flowers.
Then on Mibu no Hana you will have pink flowers that have a darker blotch.
And finally, you should be able to get solid red flowers.

The colour progression always goes from white -> pink -> red.
And from: no stripes -> a few stripes -> large sectors -> solid red
And from: yellowish green blotch -> dark blotch

Then there is also a two tone colour thing.
Pink/red -> violet/purple.

Because on Mibu no Hana, flowers always become darker, you may get a version that always has a dark pink blotch. And completely lose the slight white center yellowish blotch version. Because of this, you want to remove branches that become too dark.

Having one branch that is much darker is pretty nice. Especially if the rest of the plant us mostly the base light pink flower.
But say your plant grows more. And this one branch becomes much larger. And additionally, on other parts of the plant, you also get a few more dark flowers appearing.
In fact, after a few more years, you have a few smaller branches that also became completely dark flowers only. If you do nothing, you eventually will have half your flowers on your satsuki be darker. And when you take cuttings, half of them will never show the light pink flowers, ever.
What you could have done is removed the dark branches and regrown pink branches from scratch, which would still show a darker flower every once in a while. And eventually also grow an all dark sidebranch.

On the flip side, if you are too aggressive removing branches that show a dark flower, your flower pattern balance may be such that basically you all have the same flowers everywhere, just only with a few darker stripes every once in a while.
It is also quite common to have a satsuki cultivar that theoretically can sport many patterns. But that very few of them appear.

This article from the American Azalea society by Jim Trumbly explains it with pictures:
https://www.azaleas.org/wp-content/...icles/Propagating_Multi-Patterned_Satsuki.pdf

Tom Nuccio also explains it in this video:

Mibu no Hana is like a number 2 of Eiga no Homare in the Nuccio system.

 

[keyfen06]

White flowers should be able to produce all flower pattern variations. The red branch has no effect on the rest of the plant (I think Peter Warren may have this theory, or maybe it was only for Kinsai flower shape).\
On Mibu no Hana, you have pink flowers with a yellowish blotch/speckles and a bit of a white center? That would be the base colour.
If you have white flowers still, it is actually Eiga no Homare. So Mibu no Hana is a version of Eiga no Homare that lost all the white flowers.
Then on Mibu no Hana you will have pink flowers that have a darker blotch.
And finally, you should be able to get solid red flowers.

The colour progression always goes from white -> pink -> red.
And from: no stripes -> a few stripes -> large sectors -> solid red
And from: yellowish green blotch -> dark blotch

Then there is also a two tone colour thing.
Pink/red -> violet/purple.

Because on Mibu no Hana, flowers always become darker, you may get a version that always has a dark pink blotch. And completely lose the slight white center yellowish blotch version. Because of this, you want to remove branches that become too dark.

Having one branch that is much darker is pretty nice. Especially if the rest of the plant us mostly the base light pink flower.
But say your plant grows more. And this one branch becomes much larger. And additionally, on other parts of the plant, you also get a few more dark flowers appearing.
In fact, after a few more years, you have a few smaller branches that also became completely dark flowers only. If you do nothing, you eventually will have half your flowers on your satsuki be darker. And when you take cuttings, half of them will never show the light pink flowers, ever.
What you could have done is removed the dark branches and regrown pink branches from scratch, which would still show a darker flower every once in a while. And eventually also grow an all dark sidebranch.

On the flip side, if you are too aggressive removing branches that show a dark flower, your flower pattern balance may be such that basically you all have the same flowers everywhere, just only with a few darker stripes every once in a while.
It is also quite common to have a satsuki cultivar that theoretically can sport many patterns. But that very few of them appear.

This article from the American Azalea society by Jim Trumbly explains it with pictures:
https://www.azaleas.org/wp-content/...icles/Propagating_Multi-Patterned_Satsuki.pdf

Tom Nuccio also explains it in this video:

Mibu no Hana is like a number 2 of Eiga no Homare in the Nuccio system.

Is it okay if I send you a PM? I have a few questions and I don’t want to derail the thread. Thanks.