I would like to show you three photos of Ume because I have three varieties of Ume trees in the garden: one with red flowers, other with white flowers and another with red and white flowers (Omoinomama). And we Japanese have liked the flowers of Ume and Cherry in the gardens since a very long ago. Ume trees begin to have blooms immediately after we Japanese have endured the severely cold winter. Therefore these flowers mean that the spring has come.
When Sugawara no Michizane was exiled to Dazaifu in Kyushu from Kyoto in the end of 9 centuries, he made a short poem (Waka): Kochihukaba nioiokoseyo umenohana arujinakitote haruwowasuruna. It consists of 5, 7, 5, 7 and 7 sounds. The flowers of Ume tree! Have the fragrance when the east wind blows and do not forget that the spring has come even if your owner were not seen in the garden.
General speaking, we do not eat the fruits of the first and the third. We make the pickles or juice of the fruits of the second. And they often are grown into bonsai which consist of small, middle and large classes. And a lot of Japanese people sometimes call it BONBAI.
Some authorities in Japan tell us that though Prunus Mume is called Japanese Apricot and Japanese Plum in English these names are wrong academically, and advise us that we had better use the name of Prunus Mume (academic name) or Ume (original Japanese name). It is because we have the original Apricot and Plum in Japan. And this tree does not have any English names. To my shame I used the name of Japanese apricot or Ume whenever I wrote some English sentences because I did not know the Latin name of Prunus Mume. And I cannot find out the word of ume in the Oxford English Dictionary which I have.
Planting or Repotting Satsuki Trees in March…Part 1
It is in March that we dig out satsuki trees from the nursery and plant them in terracotta and bonsai pots after washing the roots, and repot the satsuki bonsai in the bonsai pots after pruning them, removing the soil and washing the roots. Though we sometimes have frost and the sphagnum on the soil in the pots is frozen in March, it is the best season to repot a lot of plants or plant them in pots. Of course if the soil in the pots is frozen completely, it will give some damages to them.
But we can bring them into the shelters and rooms or cover the pots with cloths or somethings. If we repot satsuki trees in the middle of April, since a lot of sprouts are coming out by the flower buds, the repotting after washing roots will give much more damages to them than that in March. But it is much better than repotting after blooming. It is because they have to endure the extreme heat in midsummer in Japan before they spread the new roots enough to grow. But since I do not have a lot of time to repot the young satsuki trees in March and have to distinguish the colours of flowers, I do it after blooming. And fortunately they grow strongly.
Section 1. Planting of very large satsuki trees after digging out from the nursery
As I wrote in the previous web site, now that I am 76 years old, I think that I will have to give up growing all satsuki trees in the pots and the nursery in 10 years and would like to make the trees in the nursery have the good shapes as soon as possible. And I planned to dig out the very large Nikko S from the main nursery and the very large Sangosai and Yakushima tsutsuji from the second nursery, and plant them in very large wooden pots after washing the roots. And I decided to dig out all trees from the second nursery to make it into the field of vegetables lest I and my wife often should water them in summer.
Since one tree died, other tree was dying and another large tree was to be planted in a large wooden pot, I dug up 4 large trees from the second nursery. And I planted three of them in the main nursery and one of them in the garden. And I dug out Sangosai and Yakushima tsutsuji from the second nursery.
At first I and my wife decided to give 16 rose trees in the second nursery to one of our friends and 2 large satsuki trees which have some defects as bonsai, too. And I asked him to pay some money for 2 large satsuki trees. Though their trunks are very thick, since the branches are very thick, they are clumsy as bonsai. Therefore I gave up making them into bonsai. He, his friends and I dug out 21 rose trees and 9 large satsuki trees and brought them to his house in Iga city by their and my cars and planted them in his garden on March 22nd though he gave some rose trees to two friends of his. And I brought 7 rose trees, two large satsuki trees and 7 satsuki trees in the pots there by my car and planted them in his garden on April 6th. Therefore I could clear the second nursery to grow some vegetables.
A. Nikko S
I dug up this large satsuki tree from the main nursery on March 10th because it did not have any large scars and had a very good taper and style. It was very easy to dig it out from there, remove the soil and wash the roots. It is Nikko S which I introduced in the previous web site.
I planted this tree in one of 6 very large wooden pots which I had ordered a friend of mine to make. The size is 65 cm x 54 cm x 23 cm. Even if a tree were very large, if I plant it in this wooden pot, I think I do not have to repot it for 5 years. But since these wooden pots are so large and heavy that I had to plant large trees on the shelves, I had to use Kanuma soil which I dried after I had washed it lest the speck of Kanuma soil should pour from the holes to the shelves and the grounds.
This tree on the left photo has a good style and taper when it was placed on the box to remove the soil. I put the large grains of Kanuma soil on the bottom of wooden pot on the second photo. The soil in it consists as follows: three fourths of the soil is middle grains and one fourths is large ones. I did not use any small grains lest the soil should be hard sooner. And the back of the roots is very good on the third and fourth photos. It means that this tree is in the good condition of growth.
The left photo is the front nebari after my washing roots, and the second one is the nebari of the back side. The third one is the front side of this tree which was planted in a very large wooden pot. The fourth one is the back side. When we wash the roots, if we wash the trunk and branches, too, the whole shape of tree will be beautiful. The height is 50 cm and the trunk girth is 52 cm.
B. Yakushima tsutsuji
When I and a friend of mine went to a large island, Yakushima, 47 years ago, which is located in the southern sea of Kagoshima prefecture, I was given a large bushy tree by a lady of BB. Though I gave up making the tree into a bonsai about 5 years later and gave it to a friend of mine as a garden tree, I had inserted a lot of cuttings into the Kanuma soil before then. Therefore this tsutsuji which I have now is 45 years old. And since about 30 years ago any one has been forbidden to bring this variety of tsutsuji out of this island. It is because this plant was designated as a natural treasure by the nation.
Since this Yakusima tsutsuji had spread the vertical roots through the Kanuma soil into the clay in the second nursery, it was the very hard work to dig it out on March 13th. And since it was so heavy that I could not carry them to the washing place, I had to remove the soil and wash the roots there. You can see the front side of this tree after I washed the roots and the several rose trees which I gave to a friend of mine on the left photo. The second photo is the back side. Though it does not have the very good nebari, it has a lot of good roots and branches.
Generally speaking, a lot of varieties of tsutsuji do not have very good nebari. Since it took me a lot of time to dig it out, remove the soil and wash the roots, I could not plant it in the large wooden pot by the evening. Therefore I wet the floor of the garage, put it there and covered the roots with wet thick towels on the third photo. The next day I carried it to the washing place to remove the soil completely and organise the roots. Since the roots on the right photo were very thick, I had to cut the long roots short and lessen the number of roots.
Though I cut the necessary roots short when removing the soil and washing the roots in the nursery, this tree has a lot of roots on the left photo. Therefore at first I cut the long and thick vertical roots short on the second one. And the third one is the roots after I removed unnecessary roots to organise them. This tree has the considerably good roots on the right photo after I organised the roots.
The left photo is the front side of the whole figure after my washing roots. Though not being very good, the nebari is good. The second one is the back side. The nebari is very good now because I removed a lot of roots and organised them. The third one is the whole figure of this tree after I planted it in the large wooden pot on March 14th. The right photo is the back side. Since I washed the trunk and branches, the trunk and branches are clean. The height is 62 cm and the trunk girth is 38 cm.
C. Sangosai
This Sangosai has been grown from one of little parts of Sangosai which I dug out from the bank of tea field of my grandfather about 49 years ago. Though it was not thin, it had good roots. And you can see the big part of the tree in my web site whose date is January 15th 2011. The title was MY MEMORIAL TREEES.
Therefore I think this tree is about 54 years old. Though it had spread the vertical roots through the Kanuma soil into the clay in the second nursery, since they were not very long, it was not the very hard work to dig it out on March 8th. But since it was so heavy that I could not carry it to the washing place, I had to remove the soil and wash the roots there. You can see the front side of this tree after I washed the roots there on the left photo. The second photo is the roots which is very thick because I have not dug it out for a long time. And though this tree has a big scar on the trunk, it has very good thin roots on the third one, too. After I cut the thick roots very short and organised the roots, this tree still has a lot of thin roots on the right photo. It means that it is in the good condition of growth.
Fortunately since it was easy to dig out this tree from the second nursery, remove the soil and wash the roots, I could plant it in the very large wooden pot to cure the big scars in a day. The left photo is the front side of the whole figure of this tree and the second one is the back side. The height is 54 cm and the trunk girth is 52 cm. Since I washed the trunk and branches, they are clean. You can see the scar on the third one. It is one thirds of that which I made on the left side of the trunk when I carved the rotten part of the trunk and packed the Purashiru in the hole about 10 years ago. And the right photo is the other large scar which I made on the bottom of trunk after washing the roots last month. Though it had a large empty hole, I did not have to carve the rotten part so much and packed the Purashiru in the hole. Perhaps the scar will not be cured perfectly even if it passed 20 years since now.
Section 2. Repotting the very large trees
I have grown these Kozan A and B in the pots for a long time since I bought them. And I sometimes introduced them in the web site. Especially I explained how to repot Kozan A in detail in it whose date is August 28th, 2015.
A. Kozan A
I bought this Kozan A for 50,000 yen in 1991. The height was 43 cm and the trunk girth was 22 cm. I cut the trunk short in1993. And I planted it in a very large wooden pot in 1997 to make it grow large and repotted it in a large terracotta pot in 2006, 2011 and 2015. Since I thought this pot was small, I repotted it in the very large wooden pot on March 21st, 2019. The left photo is the whole figure before repotting. The second one is the front side of the roots after washing. The third one is the back side of the roots. And the right one is the back of the roots. Judging from these photos, the condition of the roots is not very good though this tree has a lot of thin roots. This is the other reason why I repotted it in the very large wooden pot.
I removed the unnecessary roots and organised the roots to make some holes between toots near the bottom of the trunk. You can see them between the roots of the front side on the left photo and between the roots of the back side on the second photo. Since this tree has these holes near the bottom of the trunk, the water can reach under the trunk when I water it. Therefore it is very important that a very large tree has some holes near the bottom of the very thick trunk. In this respect, if a large tree has a large Bankon (clumpy roots) it is very dangerous because the water does not reach under the bottom of the trunk when you water it. If you do not have some special cares, it will die.
The third photo is the front side of this tree after repotting. The right one is the back side. The height is 52 cm and the trunk girth is 55 cm. Though it has the thickest bottom of trunk in my garden, since it still has the scar which I made when I cut the trunk short, I cannot plant it in a bonsai pot.
B. Kozan B
I bought this Kozan B for 33,000 yen in 1988. The height was 50 cm and the trunk girth was 19 cm. Therefore when I repotted it in1993 I cut the trunk short. The height was 32 cm and the trunk girth 22 cm. I repotted it in a large terracotta pot in 2000, 2007, 2011 and 2015. Since I thought this pot was small, I repotted it in the very large wooden pot on March 21st, 2019. The left photo is the whole figure before repotting. The second one is the front side of the roots after washing. The third one is the back side. Judging from these photos of the roots, this tree does not seem to have a lot of rotten roots. And it has a lot of good roots on the right one.
But you can see the rotten roots on the left photo, some of which are very thick. It means that it has a large rotten part inside the trunk. After having carved the rotten parts in the trunk and the left first branch, I packed the Purashiru in the hole of the trunk and strengthened the carved part of the branch with the Purashiru. The second photo is the front side of this tree after repotting. And the third one is the back side. Since the right one is the back side of the tree, you can see the scars on the trunk and the right first branch. If only this branch will die in the near future, this tree will be unable to survive for a long time.
To be continued
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