In my homepage in January 2013, I introduced how to remove the shoots of Kogetsu which are to have flowers of fukurin (white jewel border) and sokojiro (white-throat) when they have red leaves and stalks in autumn. Besides they have red leaves and stalks in spring, too. Therefore you can distinguish them and remove them easily. And I explained that we cannot distinguish the new shoots in spring and autumn which are to have red flowers next year because they have green stalks and leaves. Therefore we have to remove them from the young trees or saplings while they have red flowers.
If you don't remove the shoots which have flowers of red, fukurin and sokojiro from your saplings or young trees of Kogetsu every year, they will have a lot of them and a few white ones in several years. In the next homepage I will introduce other varieties.
Section 1. Selection of good saplings or young trees of Kogetsu
Judging from the nature of Kogetsu, when you buy the saplings or young trees which have some flowers, you mustn't buy any trees which have a lot of flowers of red, fukurin and sokojiro. At the same time you have to refuse to buy any trees which have only white flowers without red blotches and stripes because it will take a lot of years for them to have some flowers of red, fukurin and sokojiro.When you would like to take the new shoots as the cuttings of Kogetsu from the shoots, you have to choose them by the red-striped flowers. If you can do so, you will be able to grow good saplings. But when you find your saplings having some flowers of red, fukurin and sokojiro in the seedling tray next year, root them out from it. And when you find red leaves and stalks in the spring in a few years, root their saplings out from it.
These trees which have flowers of red, fukurin and sokojiro are not suitable to the saplings for bonsai. Judging from my experience of satsuki, they mean my errors because I didn't root them out from the seedling tray. But I am growing a lot of saplings of some varieties to give them to my relatives and friends as presents. Besides a lot of women like these flowers of red, fukurin and sokojiro. Fortunately, since I have a lot of saplings, I can show you good or bad examples of them as teaching materials. These photos were taken on May 31st, 2013.
Section 2. Pruning of the trees of Kogetsu
When your completed bonsai of Kogetsu has a lot oflowers of red, fukurin and sokojiro, even if you removed some thick branches and a lot of small branches which had strong-coloured flowers when you pruned it after flowering, you couldn't get a good arrangement of colours. It is because you cannot expect that a lot of new shoots will have white flowers. Only you can graft some shoots (which have white flowers) on some branches after you grew some tall saplings.This photo of Kogetsu was taken on June 2nd, 2012. You can see only one red flower, 4 flowers of fukurin and 7 flowers of sokojiro on it. I though the colour arrangement was very good. But I removed all shoots which had flowers of fukurin and sokojiro on the right trunk, a shoot of red flower on the left branch and some shoots of sokojiro on the top when I pruned it in blooming last year. It is most important to prune these kinds of varieties while they have their flowers.
Section 3. Styling of the small saplings of Kogetsu
Though Kogetsu has thinner new shoots than the average, the flower is a middle size. Therefore each long shoot cannot keep their flowers steadily except very strong shoots. But you have to give them a lot of fertilisers if you would like to get the tall saplings. Generally speaking, very strong shoots of the trees which have multi-coloured flowers are apt to have strong colours. This is such a great problem that you have to take note of this fact and decide how to style the saplings or young trees of Kogetsu.This sapling of Kogetsu doesn't have any strong-coloured flowers. Therefore I may keep any shoot when I style it. This photo was taken on May 25th before styling.
