Satsuki and Other Trees in Mack's Garden 27

Renewal February 5th, 2015



I would like to introduce some beautiful photos of satsuki flowers which were chosen from the collection of them every time when I renew my homepage.



How to Style the Young Trees of Satsuki into Shohin and Chuhin --- Part 1. Togenkyo


I haven't bought any saplings of very new varieties since about tenl years ago because they are very expensive, and I don't have a lot of time in my life to grow them into large-trunked trees. But I have grown 122 saplings and young trees of satsuki which were planted in the terracotta pots to give them to our relatives and friends.

And now I would like to keep some of them if I can make them into good bonsai and if I can use them as the materials for the renewal of my homepage. I already introduced how to make the cascade style of Togenkyo and Hikorin in it on December 7th, 2014. And these hanging branches are so long that I had to plant them in tall pots.

Though I already introduced how to grow the saplings and young trees which have multicoloured flowers twice in 2013, this time, I would like to introduce how to style the young trees of Togenkyo into shohin and chuhin because I could find some of 14 young trees as materials. At first I took photos from the front and back sides of each tree on January 16th and 17th because I can use considerable number of photos on my web site. Though I had to change the server of OCN into the new server of SAKURA because OCN is to stop the service of homepages at the end of February, it means that I have to pay some money per month to it because I wouldn’t like to use any server which forces me to receive the advertisements on my homepage though it is free of charge. Since the capacity of my homepage is 10 GB, I can use a considerable number of photos each time. And I could add to it “the Archives” which contains all of the back numbers of my homepage. Therefore when I ask you to refer to the topic in them in my homepage, please read it and you can understand my intension easily.

Section 1. My parent tree of Togenkyo

I bought two tall saplings of Togenkyo about 12 years ago because this variety has strange flowers. Though I planted them into terracotta pots and wired them to make the middle part of trunks have some new shoots, they couldn't have any good shoots there, so that I had to cut the trunks shorter several years ago. And I gave one of them to a friend of mine.

The left phot was taken on June 4th, 2012, and the right photo was taken on January 16th, 2015. The height of this tree is 47 cm and the trunk circumference is 11 cm.

Section 2. The young trees of Togenkyo as materials

Having only one tree concerning this variety, I inserted a lot of the cuttings into the seedling tray seven years ago. And according to the nature of this variety I had to remove the saplings which had red stalks and flowers from it two years later, and throw them into the rubbish basket. And repotting them, I gave more than a half of them to two friends of ours, so that I have 14 young trees now.

This variety is so strong that it grows rapidly if it is given a lot of fertilisers. But I never would like to grow them large because I have a lot of very thick-trunked satsuki trees and the very large pots are very heavy when I carry them. Therefore repotting them in 2012, I cut the trunks short except two which I made into two-trunked trees. And I made two of them into the cascade style and repotted them last June to introduce how to style them in my homepage.

I pruned and styled these materials, wired some of them and took photos of them on January 23rd.

A. The material A

This material was planted in No. 7 terracotta pot two years ago after being cut short. Therefore the taper is good though it is 7 years old. But to make it better, I would like to cut the trunk shorter. Judging from the present style of this material, I had to decide whether I would make it into the small type of right stream (right moyogi) or the mini type of satsuki bonsai.

The height is 38 cm. The left photo is the front side of the material. The right one is the back side. These photos were taken on January 16th, 2015.

I removed all front branches and shoots and cut the side branches short to distinguish the stream of the trunk clearly. And I had the two choices: to cut the trunk at the middle of height because it has a good small branch enough to make the core of the tree, and to make it into small type of bonsai after changing the top into the small shoot. When we cannot decide the direction of practise, I think it is a good idea that we inspect the nebari. And the nebari was so good that I decided to make this material into a small bonsai. It is said that even if a mini satsuki bonsai did not have a good nebari it may look more beautiful than when it has a perfect nebari. I think it is because if it has a perfect nebari and the roots are very thick, the nebari give us so strong impression that our eyes may be apt to be directed to it, not to the whole figure.

At first I removed some unnecessary thick branches and cut some ones short to see the stream of the trunk clearly.

According to the idea about the style of the tree in the mind, I decided the core of the tree. And after cutting a few unnecessary branches very short and removing some unnecessary shoots, I cut the trunk very short to change the core of the tree into a small shoot. This variety is so strong that the scars will be cured much sooner than you think. But I kept a few thick branches which I cut very short, thin branches and shoots to make the trunk thicker rapidly. This method can make the trunk have better taper though it looks a little bit clumsy now.

Though the left photo is the front side of the tree and the right one is the back side, I knew that the apex of it could not be seen clearly after I had trimmed these photos. Therefore since I wanted to have the readers understand my intention to style the tree more clearly, I cut the shoots of apex short except the core of tree.

The height is 21 cm. The trunk circunference is 7.8 cm. The photo was taken on January 23rd, 2015.

B. The material B

This material was planted in No. 7 terracotta pot two years ago after being cut short. And I have given it a lot of fertilisers and water since then. Therefore it has a lot of branches now and looks like a bush, so that I cannot see the stream of the trunk clearly.

The height is 38 cm. The left photo is the front side of the material. The right one is the back side. These photos were taken on January 16th, 2015.

At first I removed some unnecessary thick branches and cut some ones short to see the stream of the trunk. But I could not have a good idea to style it. It is because I did not wire all of the young saplings when they were repotted at the age of 2. Though I examined all sides of this material to decide the front side, I failed in doing so.

The left photo is the front side of the material. The middle one is the left side. The right one is the back side. These photos were taken on January 23rd, 2015.

When we cannot have any good ideas to style saplings or young trees, it may be necessary to change a way of thinking. As I already said above, it is one of good ideas to inspect the nebari. But in this case, since the stream of the trunk is bad, I do not have to do so. And I gave up my plan of making it into a small bonsai and searched a good shoot which I would make into the core of the material to make it into a mini bonsai. If I had not found it, I would have given up styling this material. And I will give it to one of my friends who will plant it in his garden.

But when I lifted up the left end of bottom of the terracotta pot, I could find out a good shoot to make the core of this material near the bottom of trunk. Since the shoot is long now, I had to wire it. Perhaps I will change this core into a new shoot in three or four years because I would like to make it thicker to get a good taper. And I would like to make the material into a very small bonsai whose height will be within 15 cm or 20 cm.

The height is 21 cm. The trunk circunference is 6.5 cm. The photo was taken on January 23rd, 2015.

C. The material C

This material was planted in No. 7 terracotta pot two years ago after being cut short and wired. And I have given it a lot of fertilisers and water since then. Therefore it has a lot of branches now and looks like a bush, too. But I could see the stream of the trunk clearly because it is tall and has dull curves of the trunk. Judging from the present whole figure, I cannot hope now that it will be a good bonsai.

The height is 45 cm. The left photo is the front side of the material. The right one is the back side. These photos were taken on January 16th, 2015.

But when the trunk will grow much thicker in 5 years, the atmosphere of the material may change. Hoping so, I wired the trunk after removing a lot of unnecessary branches and shoots except some shoots to make the trunk thicker. Especially I removed all unnecessary shoots of the upper half of trunk not to make it thicker. And though I wired the necessary branches, I did not cut them short to confirm the colour of the flowers. Generally speaking, the red flower buds will have red flowers, and the whitish red flower buds will have pale pink flowers or red tops of them (tsumabeni).

The height is 47 cm. The trunk circunference is 4.1 cm. The photo was taken on January 23rd, 2015.

D. The material D

I made this material into a two-trunked tree by wiring it two years ago after repotting. At that time I thought this was the best choice because this variety is so strong that it can grow rapidly every year and it was so tall that I could not cut the trunk very short and made it into a good style. But now it has a lot of branches and new shoots.

The height is 54 cm. The left photo is the front side of the material. The right one is the back side. These photos were taken on January 16th, 2015.

Judging that the height of 54 cm is a little bit tall, I decided to cut the parent (main) trunk short. The next problem is the height of child (secondary) trunk. If I keep the right branch of the parent trunk over the apex of the child trunk, the child trunk is so tall that I have to cut it short. But if I remove the branch, the height is suitable for the whole figure. And since the distance between two trunks is narrow, I have to wire the child trunk and make the distance wider.

At first I removed unnecessary branches and shoots of the child trunk except a few. And seeing the whole figure of the tree, I decided to cut it short because it has a suitable shoot to make an apex, which is small now. If I decide to make this small shoot into the core of it, I do not have to wire it because it has a suitable distance between the parent and child trunks. And I removed the unnecessary branches and shoots of the parent trunk except ones which I cut short to make the trunk grow thicker. But since I would not like to make this trunk grow very thick, I must not keep a lot of unnecessary branches and shoots. And since I would like to make this material into a natural two-trunked tree, I do not wire the branches.

The height of the parent trunk is 43 cm. The trunk circunference of the parent trunk is 4.2 cm. These photos were taken on January 23rd, 2015.

E. The material E

This Togenkyo was planted in the NO.6 terracotta pot after pruning in June 2014 because it was small and I would like to make it into a small or mini bonsai. But I think that I had better change the front side of this material because the new front has the much better stream of the tree and a good taper. In this way some young satsuki trees make themselves into better shapes than before as they grow large. Therefore when you have some young satsuki trees, you had better see through their figures after their spring leaves fell down from the branches and new shoots and confirm the whole figures every year.

The left photo is the front side of the material which I decided in June 2014. And the right one is the new front side. The height is 15 cm. The trunk circunference is 5.6 cm. Both photos were taken on January 31st, 2015.

F. The material F

This Togenkyo is the two-trunked tree which was planted in the bonsai pot last June after wiring. The whole figure of the tree is better than the above material of two-trunked tree. Since I would like to make it into the natural one, I never wire the branches. The main reason is that this variety has very strange flowers like Kinsai. I think that the regular style of two-trunked bonsai is not matched with the flowers of Togenkyo. Please see the above photo of the parent tree of Togenkyo, and you can understand what I write.

The style of all satsuki bonsai depends on the personal likes and dislikes, especially in case of two-trunked bonsai, the place and height of the main and secodary trunks give us a special impression. Sometimes it looks like a parent and a child, or a pair of a man and a woman. I always like the parent trunk whose place is left to the child trunk. But the place of this material is opposite to my like.

The left poto is the front side of material. The right one is the back side. The height of the parent trunk is 57 cm. The trunk circunference of the parent trunk is 5.1 cm. Both photos were taken on January 23rd, 2015.

Attentions: The classification of the satsuki bonsai which is set down by Japan Satsuki Association

Daihin part 1: The height of tree is 55.1 cm and over. The width of tree is free.

Daihin part 2: The height is within 55 cm. The width is within 90 cm.

Chuhin part 1: The height is within 45 cm. The width is within 70 cm.

Chuhin part 2: The height is within 35 cm. The width is within 55 cm.

Shohin part 1: The height is within 25 cm. The width is within 37 cm.

Shohin part 2: The height is within 15 cm. The width is within 25 cm.

But each association and society in Japan have their classification of satsuki bonsai. A lot of them have three classifications of daihin, chuhin and shohin. Therefore, generally speaking, the tree whose height is within 20 cm or much lower, is often called mame (mini) bonsai or gokushohin. And since this time I decided to call the material the sapling if it is wthin 3 years old, and the young tree if it is 4 years old and over.