Though I introduced “How to Style the Young Trees of Satsuki into Shohin and Chuhin --- Part 1 Togenkyo” in my web site whose date was February 5th, 2015, now I would like to introduce “How to repot young trees of Togenkyo after blooming” again.
My young trees of Togenkyo were so strong that they had a lot of shoots and flowers this year though they had been restyled drastically in January 2015. Therefore their roots spread inside the terracotta pots so much that the water could not sink into the Kanuma soil in the pots easily. And I decided to repot them after blooming in 2016.
I have 15 young trees of Togenkyo now. And I restyled only 5 trees of them in January 2015 though I restyled more than 10 other young trees. Therefore here I cannot use any photos of Material F which I could not take. Comparing between the trees which had been restyled in January 2015 and those which were repotted after blooming in 2016, you can understand how the variety of Togenkyo grows strongly.
All my satsuki trees had their flowers 10 days earlier than usual. And since I had to guide 4 Dutch friends through Kyoto, Nara, Wakayama and Ise on June 2nd to 9th, I decided to prune considerable number of young trees and repot them by June 2nd. If I had done so in two weeks after blooming, I could not have recognised their shapes and colours of flowers. We must not miss the suitable chance if we would like to style young trees drastically after blooming, which have multi-coloured flowers. If you cannot do so, you may attach some coloured rings to the branches or shoots which you would like to keep or remove, and prune your trees within June.
A. Material - A
Though this tree was so strong that it had a lot of shoots, including very long ones, I had decided to make it into a small class of bonsai. Therefore since my first aim is to make it have a good taper as soon as possible, I pruned it drastically in winter. But since you have to give up seeing the flowers if you did so, you may be allowed to do so if you have some young trees of a variety.
If I had cut the trunk short and removed a lot of branches, I had to be afraid how it would have the colour arrangement of flowers. And since Togenkyo is the bud sport of Kinsai, if we cut the thick trunks or branches, some new shoots may have normal flowers like Kinsai or only red flowers. In this case, we had better remove them from the bottoms of them. The left photo was taken on January 16th 2015, and the right one on January 23rd 2015.
You can see some normal flowers on the apex on the left photo (front side) and several ones on the right one (back side). Therefore at first I had to cut the upper trunk and branches and next remove the branches and shoots which had red flowers. But to make a satsuki tree have a good taper, we have to make the lower part of trunk have a lot of branches and shoots. Then we have to choose some of them as necessary branches in a few years. These photos were taken on May 25th 2016.
Though I thought I had to cut the trunk much shorter, the necessary shoot which will be the new trunk was so thin that I could not do so. And since I removed some thick branches, this tree had some large scars. If I cut the trunk much sorter in this condition, I think it will not grow strongly and cure them sooner. Therefore I think I will do so in 2 years or hope that it will have a more suitable shoot within two years.
And this tree had a lot of red flowers on the upper half of trunk. Therefore I may have to cut the trunk much shorter to make it have a good colour arrangement of flowers. I repotted it on May 26th 2016 and took these photos on June 1st. The height of it is 20 cm. The size of all pots that I used for 6 trees of Togenkyo is 21 cm. The left photo is the front side of it, and the right the back side.
B. Material - B
Since I always give a lot of fertilisers and water to young satsuki trees, this tree is very strong and healthy. And a lot of very long shoots mean that the trunk has become much thicker than in an ordinary growth. But since it does not have a very good style and I would like to make it into a very small bonsai, I cut the trunk very short to make it have very good taper and wired it. And it was one of reasons why I cut the trunk very short that this tree had a lot of red flowers on the upper half of trunk.
But if we cut the thick trunk of a young tree very short and the new trunk is very thin, it will take it some years to have a good taper. Therefore the problem is whether we will wait till it will have a good taper or not. It is because a lot of satsuki enthusiasts would like to see flowers every year. The left photo was taken on January 16th 2015, and the right one on January 23rd 2015.
Generally speaking, since this variety has a good power of growth, if we give it a lot of fertilisers and water, it will have a lot of long new shoots. Since I had restyled this tree in January, it had much more and longer shoots than when I prune it after blooming. And I had made it have some flower buds to confirm the shapes and colours of flowers last year. But since I cut the trunk very short and removed some thick branches, you can see a lot of red flowers on the left photo (front side) and the right (back side). These photos were taken on May 25th 2016.
I chose a long new shoot as a trunk and cut the thinner trunk to make this tree have a good taper. Though I wired the new long shoot and shaped it, this style is not a completed figure. Perhaps I will cut the new trunk shorter in two years to make the tree have a better taper. If it had a lot of thick branches, the trunk would be much thicker. But since some thick branches were removed, the trunk would have large scares which will delay growing. Therefore we had better make the trunk have several thin shoots to make the trunk thicker. I repotted this tree on May 26th and took these photos on June 1st. The height of it is 19 cm. The left photo is the front side of it, and the right the back side.
C. Material - C
This two-trunked tree seemed to look a little bit clumsy on the left photo because the main trunk did not match the child trunk. But since I thought that the former was so thick that I could not restyle it with thick wires, I decided to cut the small trunk and to wire the large one after removing a lot of branches and shoots, hoping that it would have a better style and taper. And I did not cut the long shoots short to confirm the shapes and colours of flowers. The left photo was taken on January 16th 2015, and the right one on January 23rd 2015.
This tree has the suitable shape and colour arrangements of flowers both on the left photo (front side) and the right (back side). This is the reason why I would like to keep it. These photos were taken on May 25th 2016.
But now this tree does not have a good taper. At first I made the height of it a little bit shorter. Though I have to make the lower part of the trunk have a lot of branches and shoots to grow it thicker, it does not have a lot of them except some thickest branches which I had to remove. And I had to keep some thick branches because it has some large scars though I cut them short. If it will be unable to have the good shape in three years when I repot it, perhaps I will cut the trunk very short. I repotted it on May 26th and took these photos on June 1st. The height of it is 32 cm. The left photo is the front side of it, and the right the back side.
D. Material - D
I could not wind the main trunk with wires very strongly when I styled this tree about some years ago because I wanted to make it into a middle class of bonsai. The angle between the main trunk and the child trunk is good. But it was so strong and healthy that it has been decreasing the angles of winds. It means that the trunk has grown much thicker.
If we would like to keep the same angles of winds as those when we styled a satsuki tree, we have to wire it in two years again. But I could not remember that I had done so. And besides, I thought that I had to keep this height. When removing a lot of shoots and some thicker branches and cutting thick branch short, the main trunk had no taper. The left photo was taken on January 16th 2015, and the right one on January 23rd 2015.
Though you may find these flowers beautiful on the left photo (front side) and the right (back side), I do not like the colour arrangement of flowers because red flowers are much more than pale pink ones. Therefore at first I removed some thicker branches and shoots which had only red flowers except necessary ones, secondly cut some thick branches short which had some pale pink flowers among red flowers. These photos were taken on May 25th 2016.
A two-trunked satsuki tree seems to look clumsy if both trunks have good tapers or some strong winds, and it looks so if they are like a straight one, too. But if both trunks of two-trunked tree are very straight, it is a kind of perfect style of bonsai. Therefore I will have to cut the upper parts of both trunks shorter in the near future if I would like to make this tree look beautiful. Since I had forgotten that I had taken some photos of this tree when I had pruned and repotted it on May 26th, I took this photo on July 7th 2016. The height of it is 53 cm.
E. Material - E
This tree was so strongly that I removed a lot of branches and shoots and cut the trunk very short to make it into a very small bonsai. The left photo was taken on January 16th 2015, and the right one on January 23rd 2015.
Since you can see only several pale pink flowers on the left photo (front side) and the right (back side), I do not like this colour arrangement of flowers. And since the upper part of trunk has only red flowers, I have to cut the trunk very short and to make it into a very small bonsai. These photos were taken on May 25th 2016.
Judging from the present figure, I have to cut the new trunk short after blooming in the next year. Perhaps it will have a very good taper and all scars will be cured in five years. And I hope it will have a good colour arrangement of flowers. I repotted this tree on May 26th 2016 and took these photos on June 1st 2016. The height of it is 13 cm. The left photo is the front side of it, and the right the back side.
F. Material - F
I repotted this tree two years ago. But it was so strong and healthy that the soil in the pot already was hard. Therefore I had to repot it after blooming. Since I decided that I did not use it for my web site two years ago, I did not take some photos of it. But I thought that it would have a good style if I wired it, and besides, the colour arrangement of flowers on the front side (left photo) and on the back side (right one) was good. These photos were taken on May 25th 2016.
I chose a thick branch which was suitable as a trunk among the two thick branches which I had kept as candidates of trunk. And since I winded it with a thick wire, this tree has a better shape and taper now. But I will have to cut upper part of trunk short to make it have the better taper and stream in the near future. It is because the lower part of trunk has four big scars that I keep three thick branches which were cut short. If I cut all of them, I am sure that it will be weak, and it may die or one or two big roots may die in the near future. In short, I should have removed them which were thin about 3 years ago. But I did not do so because a lot of saplings and young trees have been grown to be given to our relatives and friends.
I repotted this tree on May 26th 2016 and took these photos on June 1st. The height of it is 26 cm. The left photo is the front side of it, and the right the back side.
The archives
The archaives are the back nukmbers of my homepage. If you are interested in them, please read them. I am sure that it is very useful for you to grow satsuki trees and to make them into good bonsai.
If you would like to understand what Mack is a little more, please click here.
If you have any suggestions or impressions about my home page, please send your e-mail about them to my e-mail address.
Then I will
surely answer them.
