Though the coronavirus has been giving great damages to a lot of people in the world, some miserable natural disasters give us a lot of damages every year in Japan. The great floods and landslides continue to give us the great damages during the rainy season. I would like to pray for about 100 people who died and are missing from both of them. Fortunately, we haven’t had any great damages in Ise city. Though I had to spray three kinds of agrochemicals on 7th, it continued to rain from 5th to 14th though I could see the sun in the afternoon of 12th. But at last I could do so on 16th after the interval of 19 days. I would like to think that since we have a lot of natural disasters throughout the yea the Japanese nature may be beautiful.
Recently I have a problem: my garden trees grow prosperously though I don’t give them any fertilisers. Of course, the weeds do so. Since I had thinned out a lot of thin branches and shoots of satsuki trees in the garden in June 2019, it is a fact that they had more flowers than in 2019, but the number of them is much less than that in 1995. And a lot of new shoots by the flowers were very long. Therefore, when I saw them, they were not beautiful except some trees. I finished thinning out the shoots and thick branches drastically on 15th of July lest they should have any white roots and so that they may lot of flowers. If you are interested in the trees in the garden, see the flowers of them in the archive of my web site whose date is August 15th 2019.
The left photo is the small courtyard where only large Yama no hikari has a lot of flowers and other large trees of Hibai and Byakuren don’t have a lot of flowers. The middle one is the small garden between the house and the garage where a lot of satsuki trees don’t have a lot of flowers. And the right one is the east garden where only large Komei and Kakuo have a lot of flowers but other large trees of Shiroebisu, Namichidori, Nikko and the unknown variety don’t have a lot of flowers. But the large tree of Daigokuden doesn’t have any flowers yet when I took this photo on June 2nd.
Satsuki flowers in 2020
Since I had decided to stop growing middle and large satsuki bonsai except very small and small ones at the age of 85 at the end of last October, I sold 18 satsuki trees in the nursery on 28th of last December, 10 large satsuki trees in the nursery on February 12th, and 26 satsuki bonsai including small bonsai and 22 araki on March 6th.
Therefore, since I had some room on the main shelves, I put young satsuki trees and several cherry trees there. And I hoped that they would be able to give me a lot of pleasure to see their flowers. And I had a lot of time to repot young satsuki trees in March because it was only two thirds of the number of satsuki trees in the nursery that I had to prune drastically in January and February and because I didn’t have to repot a lot of large satsuki bonsai in March . Of course, I planted several satsuki trees there which had been planted in the pots. When I repotted a lot of young satsuki trees, I made three fourths of them have one fifths of the flower buds to see their flowers.
Though 6 cherry trees began to have flowers at the end of March, they continued to have them for much longer time than usually. It is said that the flowering condition of cherry tree means that of satsuki trees. Since a lot of satsuki trees continued to have flowers for much longer time, I could not take a lot of good photos because they did not have a lot of flowers at once. Especially a lot of large satsuki bonsai had a lot of flowers which were infected with the sclerotial flower blight in the middle of flowering. Since we had a lot of rainy days, though I had to protect the satsuki flowers lest they should be infected with the disease, I don’t have any shelters enough to put all of them and cannot bring a lot of heavy bonsai into the garage now that I am old.
Though I could not enjoy a lot of beautiful flowers of large satsuki bonsai because they were infected with the disease, since a half number of young satsuki bonsai had a lot of flowers, I could take a lot of photos of them. Therefore, I would like to introduce them and the flowers of the trees which were repotted last March, some of which had a small number of flowers, but some of which had a lot of flowers.
I made a plan to make a lot of saplings of satsuki to test what result I would get by inserting a lot of cuttings which I took at random into the small grains of Kanuma soil. I chose 5 varieties which have multicoloured flowers; Hibai, Yama no hikari, Kogetsu, Komei and Byakuren. Since I don’t know how to take the cuttings of Hibai, this is my first experience. Though I have a small tree of Hibai which is about 12 years old, I cannot remember how to have taken the cutting. Perhaps since I have two large trees of Hibai in the garden, I got it which had roots when I pruned one of them in June and planted it in a pot. The variety of Hibai has two-coloured flowers: red and pink.
Section 1. The flowers of young satsuki trees
I am very sorry to tell you that I cannot show you a lot of photos of beautiful satsuki flowers because a lot of large satsuki bonsai were infected with the sclerotial flower blight. But the young satsuki bonsai gave me a lot of pleasure. Though they continued to have flowers for a long time, since they didn't have a lot of flowers, they were not infected with the disease.
A. Benigasa A, B and Asuka
Since the trees of Benigasa A and B had been repotted in June 2018 after blooming, they had beautiful flowers because they were not infected with the disease. It is because they begin to have flowers very early in the season. Though their flowers are very large, since the number of flowers is a little bit small, I didn’t have to thin out the flower buds. Though the variety of Asuka has multicoloured flowers, since this tree has all colours of flowers that it has to have, the colour-arrangement of flowers is very good. When it has flowers, I have to remove the shoots which have only purple colour except a few shoots. Since I have grown these trees from the cutting, this Asuka is an example of my success in a choice of a cutting. The left photo is Benigasa A. The middle one is Benigasa B. The right one is Asuka.
B. Jukokan A, B and C
Jukokan A is about 12 years old but Jukokan B and C are 9 years old. Though they are young, their flowers are beautiful. And all of them have been grown from the cuttings. You can enjoy the flowers of satsuki trees which are 3 or 5 years old if you could grow them from the cuttings by yourself. It is very easy to get a lot of saplings though you have to take good care of taking of cuttings of the trees which have multicoloured flowers.
You cannot see any red-striped flowers on the photos of all of them but can see a small red broch in a flower of Jukokan A. I hope that they will have some red-striped flowers in a near future. Since 6 large trees of Jukokan in the nursery are more than 30 years old, each of them has some red-striped flowers every year. I think that the gene of red colour is very week. The left photo is Jukokan A. The middle one is Jukokan B. The right one is Jukokan C.
C. Banri no kagayaki, Nikko A and B
It is very difficult to make the variety of Banri no kagayaki have a lot of red flowers. Two large trees of this variety in the nursery have only several red flowers every year. Therefore, though this Banri no kagayaki had not had any red flowers last year, I was happy to see only one red flower and some flowers which had a small red stripe. Since these trees of Nikko A and B have the very good colour-arrangement of flowers, they are very beautiful. It is good that they don’t have a lot of red flowers. If they have a lot of red flowers, you may feel the color-arrangement of flowers violently. I don’t like such satsuki bonsai. The left photo is Banri no kagayaki. The middle one is Nikko A. The right one is Nikko B.
D. Hikorin A, B and Togenkyo A
Though these cascades are young, they have a lot of flowers. And since they are not completed as bonsai yet, I have to improve their styles and would like to complete them in 2024 when I repot them. I would like to make the trunk of Hikorin A much longer and make Hikorin B and Togenkyo A have the neat branch pads. But since I have to consider the colour-arrangement of flowers of Togenkyo, it is difficult to make it have a good placement of branches as cascade. It is because I have to remove the branches which don’t have good flowers. And it is very difficult to make the trees which have multicoloured flowers into a style of cascade. And originally, I did not have any plans to grow the saplings to make some style of cascade. Since they happened to have very long shoots, I styled them into cascades. Therefore, they have the same style of cascade.
I don’t like a style of cascades. Several times I made some cascades before but all of them didn’t continue to live. Though they were safe because I had brought them into the garage whenever I had a typhoon, they often fell down from the shelves by the strong May storm or the very strong winds and lost their tops and branches. And at last they disappeared from the shelves. But since I have 8 cascades now, I have to see the weather forecast on TV as carefully as possible. The left photo is Hikorin A. The middle one is Hikorin B. The right one is Togenkyo A.
E. Togenkyo B, C and Yakushima azalea
These Togenkyo are two trees of 9 materials which I have used in my web site. Recently the colour-arrangement of flowers of all of my Togenkyo is not good. It is because they have a lot of red flowers and a lot of formal flowers. One of them had three fifths of formal flowers last June. Only this Togenkyo B had a good colour-arrangement of flowers. I don’t know why the number of red or formal flowers increase year by year. Though the flowers of Togenkyo C are beautiful, since it has a lot of red flowers, the colour-arrangement of flowers is not good.
Since Yakushima azalea was designated as a national treasure about 30 years ago, it is inhibited to be brought out from the Yakushima Island. When I went there with Mr. Takagi who was my wife’s colleague in March 1972, the hostess of the inn gave me a large three-trunked tree. It was so heavy that he carried it on the rucksack to my house instead of me who could not carry something heavy because only one year had passed since I had left the hospital. Though these three trunks were thick, since the whole figure of the tree was clumsy as bonsai, I planted it in a large wooden pot and took some cuttings. And I gave it to one of my friends as a garden tree in three years.
Now I have a very large tree of this variety in the very large wooden pot which is 47 years old. About ten years ago a person who is from there came to our house and asked me to make some saplings. This tree is one of them. Though I repotted it in June 2018, it doesn’t have a lot of flowers. I think it is difficult to make a lot of varieties of azalea into bonsai. Though this two-trunked tree has a good shape, since the new shoots grow long, it won’t be a good bonsai. The left photo is Togenkyo B. The middle one is Togenkyo C. The right one is Yakushima azalea.
Section 2. The flowers of the young satsuki trees which were repotted last March
Since I sold 26 satsuki bonsai including small ones, I didn’t have to repot a lot of large satsuki bonsai in March. Therefore, I had a lot of time to spare in March and decided to repot a lot of small satsuki bonsai which I had repotted after blooming since they had been saplings, and to repot some satsuki bonsai which belongs to a middle class. And I made them have one fifths of flower buds to see the flowers. But having the bad weather, more than a half of them did not good flowers. Since they continued to have flowers for a long time, their early flowers were infected with the sclerotial flower blight. When I took their photos, since these 9 trees had a considerable number of flowers, I would like to show them here.
A. Sangosai, Nikko C and D
Sometimes I introduced this Sangosai on the left photo in this web site. Since about one thirds of the very large Sangosai which I had grown since our marriage in 1972 died, I planted two parts in terracotta pots after removing the dead roots in April 2016. This is one of two parts. Since both of trunks had the large scars after I had carved the rotten parts about 40 years ago, though I thought it would die when I planted it in a terracotta pot in 2016, I repotted it in a bonsai pot last March because I thought it was healthy.
These Nikko C and D have smaller leaves than their parent. Though this two-trunked Nikko C has only several flowers, you can see a red-striped flower on the middle photo. Therefore, I can be sure that the colour-arrangement of flowers of this tree will be good in the near future. And, since a red flower bud can be seen on the right photo of the three-trunked Nikko D though it has only a small number of flowers, I can hope that the colour-arrangement of flowers of this tree will be perfect.
B. Nikko E, F and Hikorin C
Nikko E and F are about 18 years old. Though I took photos of these trees because they had a considerable number of flowers, the colour-arrangement of flowers is not good. They don’t have any red and red-striped flowers. But since Nikko E has only one flower of Nyohozan on the branch of the left trunk, I may be able to hope that this tree will have some red-striped flowers. And since Nikko F has two combination colours, I may hope that this tree will have some red-striped flowers. Judging from these conditions of both trees, I would like to continue to keep them on the shelves.
Hikorin C has a good style as cascade. Since this variety has a single colour, it is easier to complete it into bonsai than any other trees which have multi-coloured flowers. Therefore, I think that it is important to make each branch pad tidy though it is difficult to do so. The left photo is Nikko E. The middle one is Nikko F. The right one is Hikorin C.
C. Togenkyo D, Juko and Shintaiyo
I bought the very tall sapling of this Togenkyo D in 2001 and styled it by cutting it short. Though it is about 23 years old, the trunk is not thick. Therefore, I continued to keep it in a large terracotta pot. When I repotted it in the bonsai pot last March, I removed a half of flower buds. It had had a good colour-arrangement of flowers before2018, but it was not good in 2020 because this tree had a lot of red flowers. I don’t know why all of my Togenkyo had more red flowers in 2019 and 2020 than before.
Sometimes I introduced this tree of Juko in my web site, which I had inserted the cutting into the Kanuma soil in 1980. When I wired the very tall sapling in December 1986, I broke the trunk and cut it short. I had planted it in the nursery in April 1992. Digging it out from there in April 2008, I planted it in a terracotta pot. And I repotted it in the bonsai pot in 2013. Judging from this history, though it is 40 years old, the trunk girth was 23 cm when I repotted it on April 2nd, 2020.
Sometimes I introduced this Shintaiyo in my web site. Having dug it out from the garden of the old house which we had bought in 1977, I removed the black soil completely, washed the roots and planted it in the large bonsai pot in March 1978. Repotting it in 1981, I carved the rotten parts in the bottom of the trunk and the trunk itself completely and applied the medicine to the scars. Therefore, after having been repotted, it seemed to stand on two legs. And I was afraid that it will die in the near future. But it continues to live and have a lot of beautiful flowers. The left photo is Togenkyo D. The middle one is Juko and the right one is Shintaiyo.
Section 3. A plan to grow satsuki trees from the cuttings
Since I sold a lot of satsuki bonsai and araki and will do so, I thought that I would be able to have a lot of time to do something. And suddenly I decided to grow satsuki trees from cuttings. Since I would like to continue to renew my web site, I will need some new articles of workings about them. It is a fact that the number of photos of good satsuki bonsai which I will take from now on will decrease rapidly year by year. And I will be able to report the growth of the cuttings once a year. Since I introduced the important details about growth of satsuki trees from cuttings in my web site whose date is November 9th, 2011, I would like to write only my actual workings and the knowledge concerning them.
Though I happened to think that I would make saplings of 3 varieties of satsuki trees which have multi-coloured flowers at the start of June, I took about 125 cuttings from 5 varieties which have multi-coloured flowers at random on June 25th: Hibai, Yama no hikari, Kogetsu, Komei and Byakuren. I have good samples of 4 varieties which have very good colour-arrangement of flowers, 3 of which are small bonsai of Hibai (the left photo), Yama no hikari (the second one) and Kogetsu (the third one), and one of which is a large bonsai of Komei (the right one). Since I didn’t take any photos of some trees of Komei in 2020, I used the photo here which I took on May 26th, 2016 when it had a good colour-arrangement of flowers. But I don’t have any good photos of Byakuren because I don’t have any trees in the pots.
I got a lot of long cuttings of 5 varieties which have multi-coloured flowers at random as a test to find out what colours of flowers each variety has though I didn’t take the longest shoots of them that I think have the strong genes. But you have to choose the good cuttings by the small red-striped flowers if you would like to get a lot of good saplings.
Now, I would like to show my errors of choosing cuttings. The left photo is a tree that we cannot call Karenko. The middle one is a tree which we cannot call Eikan. The right one is a tree which we cannot call Asuka. Do you think that their flowers are beautiful? If you don’t know what these varieties are, these flowers may be beautiful. Though these trees have single-coloured flowers, I have kept them to show my errors of choosing the cuttings without burning them.
Hibai has two-coloured flowers: red and pink. Fortunately, though I have a small tree of Hibai which has the very good colour-arrangement of flowers, I think I happened to be able to get a good cutting. I don’t know how to get a lot of good cuttings of Hibai. I cannot decide which is better, getting the cuttings by the red flowers or by the pink flowers. Therefore, this is my first trial. The left photo is the flowers of Hibai in the small courtyard. It doesn’t have a lot of flowers though I thinned out a considerable number of shoots and branches in June 2019 but has a good colour-arrangement of flowers. The right photo is the whole figure as the parent tree of cuttings. Since it has a lot of long new shoots though I didn’t give it a lot of fertilisers, I could take 25 long cuttings at random except the longest ones.
Since this Yama no hikari which has been planted in the small courtyard since we built our new house has the very good colour-arrangement of flowers, these flowers are very beautiful on the left photo. Therefore, it is very good as a parent tree of cuttings and doesn’t have a lot of white flowers. It is very strange that this variety has the very strong gene that make it have more white flowers every year. Generally speaking, the gene of white flowers is very weak in a lot of varieties of satsuki trees except some varieties. The right photo is the whole figure of Yama no hikari as a parent of cuttings. Since it has a lot of long new shoots, I could take 25 good cuttings at random.
This Kogetsu was planted in the nursery about 27 years ago after I had grown it in a pot from cutting for about 15 years. It is because I grew it in the pot when it was young that the trunk girth is not very thick. Though it doesn’t have a lot of flowers, it has the good colour-arrangement of flowers on the left photo because I removed a lot of red shoots whenever I pruned it drastically in January or February. The red new shoots will have fukurin (white jewel border). Fortunately, it doesn’t have a lot of red flowers though I cannot distinguish which shoots will have red flowers because the green shoots will have red flowers, too. The right photo is the whole figure of Kogetsu which is a parent of cuttings. Since it has a lot of long new shoots because I always give it a lot of fertilisers, I could take 25 good cuttings except red shoots at random.
The left photo is the flowers of Komei in the nursery, which was taken on May 14th, 2016. It had a lot of white flowers because I had removed all red shoots when pruning it drastically in February. But though I didn’t photograph it in May 2020, it had a lot of pink flowers. Therefore, it is a good material of getting cuttings. It was planted in the nursery about 27 years ago after I had grown it in a pot from cutting for about 15 years. It is because I grew it in the pot when it was young that the trunk girth is not very thick. The right photo is the whole figure of Komei in the nursery which is a parent of cuttings. Since it has a lot of long new shoots because I always give a lot of fertilisers, I could take 25 good cuttings at random.
The left photo is the flowers of Byakuren in the small courtyard. Though the photo isn't clear, the colour-arrangement of flowers is good. And it had a lot of long new shoots. But I forgot to take the cuttings from this tree and took them from the tree in the nursery on the right photo at random, which doesn’t have a lot of long shoots. This tree had the best colour-arrangement of flowers in the nursery. It is sure that it is good as a material to take cuttings. Though I always give a lot of fertilisers to Byakuren and Karenko in the nursery, they don’t have a lot of long good cuttings. Though they always have a considerable number of very long shoots, since it is sure that these shoots will have the flowers of Juko in the following May, we mustn’t take them as cuttings.
Though cuttings of four varieties were more than15 cm, those of Karenko were about 10cm. I dipped them in the water for about three hours. And making each of them have 4 or 5 new leaves, I removed the rest from them and cut them into 8 cm with a very sharp knife. Don’t use the scissors of blunt edges. If you do so, since the cuts are a little bit crashed, you won’t get a good result.
Since I have used 4 seedling trays to make a lot of set of strawberry, I washed 3 big pots. And I put the wet sphagnum moss thickly on the bottoms of them so that the cuttings may produce a mass of fine new roots interwoven with the moss. And I put 3cm of the middle grain of Kanuma soil on the sphagnum moss and made a lot of vertical holes to insert them by a bamboo stick after wetting the soil. And choosing 20 cuttings of each variety, I used rooting hormone to encourage quick root production and potentially good nebari after wetting the cuts. And I watered them after inserting them to the sphagnum moss. If you would like to get tall saplings to make satsuki bonsai, you had better insert them into the soil slantingly and give them a lot of water twice a day and a very small quantity of organic fertiliser every week to make them grow large after planting them in the small plastic pots.
Since I would like to grow them into small or very small bonsai, I inserted them into the soil vertically. Unfortunately, since I used up10 kgs of sphagnum moss at the moment when I put it on the bottoms of 3 pots, I couldn’t spread it on the surface of the soil because it takes me two months to order it and get it. It is sure that if you can do so you will have a better result.
Now I have 20 cuttings of each variety and 2 or 3 cuttings of each variety that are safety measures in 3 pots. Therefore, I think I will be able to have 20 saplings of each variety when I plant them in small plastic pots, and have to throw the rest into a garbage basket. When these cuttings have white roots in the sphagnum moss about at the start of August, I will remove all soil from the pots, cut the layer of sphagnum moss of each pot into halves by a very sharp knife and put them with cuttings on a wooden plate.
And I will cut the layer of sphagnum moss into a lot of small squares with a very sharp knife to separate each cutting. And I will sort and arrange the white roots of each cutting carefully with tweezers to undo tangles and cross-overs so that the good radial spread of roots may produce a good nebari. When I plant them in small plastic pots at the start of August, I will put the sphagnum moss at the bottom of plastic pots and on the soil. And I will put them on the shelves under the black nets till the last ten days of September and give them a very small quantity of organic fertilisers every three weeks. I don’t have to give them a lot of fertilisers because I would like to make very small and small bonsai. If they grow large, I will cut the trunks short when I repot and wire them in two years. And since I don’t have any green houses or shelters, I will keep them under the eaves of the house where they can have a lot of sunshine in the winter without the north winds.
This is the start point to test how many trees I will have in 5 years, which will have a good colour-arrangement of flowers. I think that I will be very lucky if 30 % of each variety will have it. If I found out one of 60 saplings of Kogetsu, Komei and Byakuren which has some red shoots, I have to throw it into a garbage basket. Since Yama no hikari doesn’t have any red new shoots, it is all right. Since I don’t have any knowledges about cuttings of Hibai, I would like to continue to keep 20 saplings even if I saw the red shoots.
The archives
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