I would like to show you three photos of the flowers of satsuki trees which I think will die in several years. I have grown this tree of Shinnyo no tsuki and other one of Shintaiyo from the cuttings which I made in 1973. Though they have a lot of beautiful flowers, they are so weak that their some thin branches continue to die recently. It is because they have the large scars I made when I cut the thick branches. Therefore I always give them HB101 when I give it to the large trees which were repotted. It is a fact that nine-tenths of saplings which I had made in 1973 and 1974 died or were given to our friends and relatives. And some of the rest are dying.
I dug Sangosai from the bank of a lane in my grandfather's field when I got married in 1972. The height was about 15 cm and their roots were about 10 - 15 cm. Though I had grown it large in the bonsai pot since then, since one third of the number of trunks died, I repotted it into a very large terracotta pot in April 2016. And last year a thick branch died though I gave it HB101 whenever I gave it to other large trees which were repotted.
These are my memorial trees. At the same time they are my good friends which have seen the changes of the world with me since my marriage. Perhaps they will die before I will die because I think I will make some plans to dispose of all plants in the pots by the age of 85.
Farewell to the rose gardens
Our rose trees always have a lot of flowers from the beginning of May to the end of December. Therefore we have been enjoying them every day for the season since we built another house in April 2001. Since we are old now, my wife told me that she would like to stop growing rose trees and I agreed with her. Though we will miss them very much if we dig them up by the end of March 2020, we are searching for some persons who will dig up some rose trees and plant them in their gardens.
Section 1. A short history of the rose garden
After we had lived for ten years in Ujiurata, Ise city, we built a new house in Fujisato, Ise city in April 1989. And having sold the old one in Ujiurata, we bought a large land of 980 square meters near the new house in 1990. When the work shop of grafting of rose trees was held in the meeting room of Jingu Hall by the Jingu rose garden in February 1991, my wife Miyoko bought 73 stocks of the wild brier and asked a member of Rose Society to make a sample of grafting of rose tree. And she came home with them and a lot of grafts of rose and asked me to graft them. It took me a day and a half to do so. And I succeeded in making 72 saplings of rose.
Since the ground of our new land consists of the speck soil and small grains of stones, I asked a contractor to dig the speck soil and small grains of stones deeply and remove them from the land of 300 square meters, and to dump a lot of mountain soil there from the large trucks to plant a lot of satsuki trees and to grow a lot of vegetables in 1991. At the same time I had to buy an extreme quantity of good mountain soil to make a rose garden and other gardens. And when we had grown the saplings of rose in the pots large, since we had a lot of trees of the same varieties, we had to give the unnecessary saplings to our friends. Therefore we planted about 55 saplings there. And at that time we did not know their varieties because any tags of varieties were not attached to each graft by my wife. Though we could confirm a lot of varieties in the Jingu rose garden two or three years later, we still have several varieties which we cannot confirm.
Before building another new house, I asked my brother to help me to build walls of concrete blocks around the rose garden and bought a lot of good mountain soil to finish the rose garden and other gardens in 1999. And I asked two gardeners to put a lot of stones around 4 small gardens and make gardens by using the trees which I had bought and planted there. And we bought about 33 saplings of rose trees as new varieties and planted them in the rose garden in 2000. The left and second photos are the wall which was made from the concrete blocks. At the same time you can see a lot of large U-shaped gutters which I put by it lest it should lean and so that I might put a lot of small pots on them. And you can see a passage of concrete slabs among the rose trees on the third photo. And you can see the same walls in the nursery on the right photo.
Since she had 88 rose trees, she insisted that she would want to have 100 rose trees. And since she bought 14 rose trees in about 2010, I planted them in the second nursery because I had already dug up more than 10 satsuki trees from there. Four rose trees being added, the number of rose trees was 106 in 2015.
Section 2. Our rose gardens
Miyoko always waters all rose trees, roots up the weeds and does other things because these rose gardens are hers. And I prune them drastically at the beginning of February, spray three kinds of agrochemicals over them every ten days in spring, summer and autumn, give a lot of fertilisers 5 times per a year, and cut the shoots short after blooming. Of course she helps me to do so.
The left and second photos are the rose trees in the rose gardens and the satsuki trees on the shelves and in the nursery after it had snowed on January 23rd, 2018. And the third and right photos are rose trees before pruning. You can see some swelling flower buds on the both photos which were taken on January 31st. It is because it is warm in Ise in mid-winter.
The left photo was taken after we had had a small quantity of snow on February 8th, 2014. You can see the very beautiful scenery in the rose garden on the second photo, which was covered by a lot of snow which we had had on February 14th. And the season passed. All rose trees began to have new shoots on the third photo which was taken on March 18th, 2013. Though it passed only 8 days on the calendar, since it became very warm, you can see a lot of new shoots on the right photo which was taken on March 26th, 2016.
A lot of insects and worms like rose trees much more than satsuki trees. And the former is more vulnerable to diseases than the latter. Therefore though we have to spray some agrochemicals over the former sooner than the latter, we do so every 10 days in spring, summer and autumn.
Therefore you cannot see the leaves of rose trees which were eaten by the worms and given some damages by the diseases on the left photo which were taken on April 25th. And they continue to have a lot of flowers from May to December. Since we would like to continue to see them for 8 months, we make a lot of rose trees have a lot of them. Therefore they are smaller than the regular sizes of each tree. The second and third photos are the whole views of the main rose garden. And you can see the rose flowers in the small rose garden and the satsuki flowers in the nursery on the right photo. These photos of rose flowers were taken in May.
I would like to show you a lot of photos of rose flowers which I chose from the collection of the photos about flowers. Since I am not a good cameraman, some of them are not clear. These photos were taken in May.
My wife and I like large rose flowers. Therefore nine-tenths of rose trees are the varieties which have large flowers. Though the trees of these flowers do not belong to the varieties which have very large flowers, since we gave a lot of fertilisers and water, they are very large.
And the flowers in autumn are more beautiful and the colours of them are stronger than those in spring because the season is autumn and we give a lot of fertilisers and water to rose trees. These photos were taken on September 26th, 2012.
Since it is very warm in Ise in late autumn, our rose trees have a lot of flowers. These photos were taken on November 19th, 2014.
And we can enjoy the rose flowers in winter, but all rose trees do not have a lot of flowers. Since we do not have thick frost so often in mid-winter, these flowers are beautiful. These photos were taken on January 6th, 2019.
Section 3. Farewell to my second nursery of satsuki trees
The very large trees of Sangosai and Yakushima tsutsuji which were introduced in the 50th web site were dug out from the second nursery on March 10th, 2018. And I dug out four large trees from there and planted three of them in the main nursery because I had dug out a large dead tree, a large dying tree and a large Nikko which was to be planted in a large wooden pot, and planted one of them in the garden because a large holly tree had died.
My wife and I decided to give 16 rose trees, a good satsuki tree in a middle class, 2 large satsuki trees and 4 bush satsuki trees in the second nursery to Mr. Baba, one of our friends. And I asked him to pay some money for 2 very large satsuki trees which have some defects as bonsai. Though their trunks are very thick, since the branches of them are very thick, they are clumsy as bonsai. Therefore I gave up making them into bonsai though they are perhaps 47 years old. These four photos which were taken on May 22nd, 2017, are the flowers of the rose trees which we promised him to give. Therefore they are in our minds now.
He, his friends and I dug out 21 rose trees in the second nursery and small rose garden and 9 large satsuki trees in the former, brought them to his house in Iga city by their cars and mine and planted them in his garden on March 22nd though he gave some rose trees to 2 friends of his. It took us 2 hours to go there by car. And I brought 7 rose trees, two large satsuki trees and 7 satsuki trees in the terracotta pots there by my car and planted them in his garden on April 6th. Therefore I could clear the second nursery so perfectly that we could plant a lot of the vines of sweet potato and three pumpkins.
But to our sorrow, whenever some group of monkeys dug up the vines of sweet potato several times, I had to plant them again and again, and they ate the fruits and new vines of the pumpkin in July. And they often ate the fruits of egg plants which we are growing in the field by the garage. Suffering these damages, we finished making strong fences with barbed wires, iron poles, bamboo and nets on July 28th. It took us 5 days to make the fences completely. We planted green onion in the second rose garden on August 7th because several rose trees had been dug out from there. The left photo is the gate of the second nursery. The second one is the vines of sweet potatoes which are protected with the fence. The third one is the egg plants which are protected with the fence. The right one is the green onions which were planted after several rose trees had been dug out.
Mr. Baba will bring a lot of rose trees home after digging them up within this year or next March. But we have to search other persons who will bring the rest of them home after digging them up. Though I will be able to help them to dig them up, I will not dig them up by myself. The roots of rose trees are so weak that we must not expose them to the air for a long time. They have to cover them with the soil or other things immediately after they were dug out from the field. We would like to dispose of the rest of them completely by March of 2021.
Now I am 77 years old. I am losing the power. Therefore I would like to finish disposing of all plants in the pots by the age of 85. I think I have to begin to sell the very large satsuki bonsai one by one and to make some plans about it now. But since Ise city is very far from Osaka and Nagoya, I cannot visit a lot of satsuki bonsai shops to sell them by car. And I cannot hope that the bonsai enthusiasts in Mie prefecture will be able to buy a very expensive satsuki bonsai. At the same time I would like to close my web site when I could dispose of all plants in the pots.
The archives
The archaives are the back nukmbers of my web site. 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 web site, please send your e-mail about them to my e-mail address.
Then I will surely answer them.