We Japanese like the flowers of all varieties of cherry trees. We are enjoying them in Ise for a long time. Since we don’t have any special places where we can see the special varieties of them, I and my wife went to two places by my car, where we could see Kawazu cherry blossoms on 23rd February because the number of people infected with coronavirus has decreased sharply. This variety can have a lot of flowers for a long time because it is still very cold in February. Therefore, we can see them only in the districts where it is much warmer than other districts in Honshu. Since it is much warmer in Mie and Shizuoka prefectures, we can see a lot of Kawazu cherry blossoms. And we will go to Takami-no-sato park to see the cherry blossoms of more than 1,000 weeping cherry trees by my car on 18th April. Since the park is located in the high mountains between Mie and Nara prefectures and it is much colder, we can enjoy them in the mid and late April. I will introduce the beautiful flowers here. You will be able to look forward to seeing them.
These photos are Kawazu cherry blossoms in Gonbee-no-sato park in Kihoku town in Mie prefecture. Though we can see a lot of beautiful flowers of a lot of cherry trees, since they have been planted in the very wide park and fields, and by the roads, the scenery isn’t gorgeous. The cherry tree which you can see behind me on the right photo is the parent tree from which a lot of saplings were made by cutting. Since the variety of Kawazu cherry was found about 30 years ago in Kawazu town Shizuoka prefecture, we cannot see a lot of Kawazu cherry blossoms in a lot of places. If some saplings were planted in the districts where it isn’t warm in winter, they don’t begin to have flowers much earlier than those of Someiyoshino which is the most popular variety of cherry.
Kawazu cherry blossoms in Togu Minamiise town Mie prefecture are much more gorgeous than those in Kihoku town. Since we couldn’t go there because of the influence of Koronavirus for three years, the colourful and beautiful flowers gave me the strongest impact. And all of them grew much larger. They tell us that spring will come soon.
Satsuki trees in my garden
When I was 77 years old, I decided to sell all of large and middle bonsai and all trees in the nursery by the age of 85 and to continue to grow a small size of satsuki trees as long as I will be able to take care of them. And I asked two friends of mine who have satsuki shops to sell them to their customers at end of October 2019. Though one of them bought small number of satsuki bonsai and araki, I didn’t ask him to buy the trees any more by some reasons.
Other one, Mr. Toshiro Yoshii, who has Mozuen, a large satsuki shop in Osaka, came here and dug out a lot of trees from the nursery and brought a lot of large satsuki bonsai in January and February 2020. A lot of members of Ise Satsuki Society went there several times by a bus to see the new year satsuki bonsai show and to take tart in the auction of satsuki trees, pots and others. And I met him several times at the autumn satsuki bonsai show in Kanuma because he was Vice chairman of Japan satsuki cooperative and is so now.
Section 1. Transplanting of the trees in the nursery
Mr. Yoshi could not come here during the coronavirus pandemic. Since he came here three times in January and February 2023 to dig out a lot of satsuki trees from the nursery, I thought that he wouldn’t come here any longer. But he came here on 9th March and dug 10 large trees. Therefore. I have only 11 large, 3 middle and several small trees in the nursery now. Though it had passed 20 years since I had replanted these large trees when we had built the new house, since I hadn’t transplanted them, I decided to transplant them so that it will be able to be very easy for me to water them every day in summer. The distance between each large tree is 115 cm and the level of soil is lower than the concrete blocks lest the water should run over them when I water them. And some of large satsuki trees have large scars on the trunks and some of young trees were planted there about 3 years ago. Therefore, I would like to grow them till I will be 85 years old because I will be able to take good care of them.
Though I paid about 1.2 million yen for water for the trees in the nursery for these 30 years, I will be able to get only 2.2 million yen as the total sum of money, and be paid 2 million yen for all satsuki bonsai though I paid 12 million yen for all satsuki trees that I had bought. Therefore, I think that I will get about 5 million yen, including the money of a lot of new and used pots and others. This amount of money is about one fifth of the sum which I paid for these 50 years because I paid about 13 million yen for water, soil, fertilisers, pesticides, pots, tools, wires and concrete blocks and plates and others. But I don’t think that I wasted a lot of money for satsuki and fishing. Since I had thought I wouldn’t be able to live till I would retire from any job when I had left the hospital after the 5 months hospitalization at the age of 29, I am very happy now and have to thank fishing and bonsai. Though I had been taken out fishing by a friend of mine for 19 years, who was an owner of the small boat, since he died last July, I don’t pay any money for fishing now.
Since I couldn’t sell some of the trees in the nursery which have large scars on the trunks, I transplanted these large trees after drastic pruning to give them water easily and to take good care of them. And I didn’t take any photos of them except some trees before pruning. Though I chose the good materials for the web site and photographed a lot of them, I sold all of them on 9th March. Therefore, though I had to finish pruning all trees in the nursery by the end of February, I did so on 16th and finished transplanting them on 21st because we had a lot of rainy days in March.
Part 1. Hakurin A and B
I took the left photo of Hakurin A and B on 4th January 2022. Since they are so strong that they have a lot of very long shoots. The middle and right ones are two of very long shoots which I photographed on 19th February though their trees were sold. The temperature was so high last summer that all trees in the nursery didn’t have any longer shoots than 70 cm though a lot of them had had a lot of shoots which were longer than 80 cm before. Though I gave an extreme lot of water to them every two days, a few of them died and a few of them had dying branches.
The let photo is the front side of Hakurin A. The taper of the trunk is very good and the bottom of the trunk is very thick. But it has a large scar on the bottom of the trunk on the middle one. It is a fatal defect now. If it will pass 5 years, it may be much better. The right one is the front side of Hakurin B. Though the taper of the trunk is very good and the trunk girth is very thick, the style isn’t very good. When a very young satsuki tree grew very large, even if it had had good bends of the trunk which were made by wiring when it was a sapling, we cannot have a good result like this tree. When we would like to plant a young tall satsuki tree in the nursery to make it very large, we had better make it have some strong bends.
Part 2. Kinsai A, B, C and D
The left photo is the front side of Kinsai A before pruning. It means the condition of this tree that it doesn’t have a lot of very long shoots. Though almost all trees in the nursery hadn’t been replanted since 2002, more than half of them were strong, but one third of them weren’t strong and one twentieth of them died. I think it is better that we replant satsuki trees in the nursery once per ten years to cut a lot of vertical roots. Pruning this tree drastically, I transplanted it on the centre of the ridge to water it easily every day in summer and to take good care of it. The middle photo is the front side. And the right one is the whole figure of Kinsai B.
The left photo is the front side of Kinsai C and the right one is the whole figure of Kinsai D after transplanting. Though the trunks of these four trees of Kinsai are thick, comparing to other trees in the nursery, they aren’t very thick. I think this variety needs much more water and fertilisers than any other varieties when they are about 15 years old. I was afraid that if I had done so they would have had a lot of formal flowers by cutting a lot of thick branches short and removing a lot of very long shoots. Since I didn’t have any experiences about growing the variety large in the nursery for a long period, I chose the safe way. But they have a lot of formal flowers after removing the long shoots from the branches completely. I know that a lot of very long new shoots will have formal flowers.
Part 3. Korin A and B
The left photo is Korin A which has a good taper of the trunk. The style isn’t bad and the bottom of the trunk is very thick. But such large satsuki trees isn’t popular in Japan now. A lot of satsuki enthusiasts like the various type of small satsuki bonsai because a lot of them are old. Since I am 80 years old, I am selling my middle and large satsuki bonsai and the satsuki trees in the nursery. The middle one is Korin B which has the good style. Though it has the very good taper of the trunk whose bottom is very thick on the middle one, it has a very large scar on the bottom of the trunk on the right one. It may not be repaired in 10 years. It is my great error. I should have cut the very thick branch about 25 years ago. But I was very busy at that time because I began to write a dissertation to get a title of doctor of literature. Therefore, I designed the chairman of Ise satsuki society and left it, too. And I couldn’t take good care for the trees in the nursery for several years. Fortunately, since I published a very thick book, I could get the title when I retired from Kogakkan university in March 2007.
Part 4. Hikorin A
The front side of this Hikorin A is good on the left photo but it has a large scar on the upper trunk of the back side. After cutting the thick branch, I applied the medicine and put the Cutpaster on the scar about 13 years ago. When I pruned it last month, I found the small rotten part under the scar. When I removed the rotten part with a knife and a chisel, the empty hole was very large. After cleaning it, I applied the medicine. Kneading a lot of underwater bond, I pushed it into the empty hole and put the Cutpaster over it on the right photo. Though this tree is very strong, it may die within 5 years.
Part 5. Kegon and Akanefuji
The left photo is Kegon whose taper of the trunk is very good. And it isn’t tall. But the top isn’t good on the middle one. Since it has good long shoots, I have a plan to graft two shoots next month. It will take it 4 or 5 years to make a good top. The right one is Anakefuji. I transplanted it to the nursery from the pot about 15 years ago. If a satsuki tree has been planted in a pot for a long time, it will take it a longer time to grow large.
Part 6. Kozan A, Unknown and Hakurei
The left photo is the front side of Kozan A whose bottom of trunk has a middle size of scar. Though the branches are thick, the style is good. Since the scar will be healed in three years, I would like to keep it. This Unknown on the middle one is a natural seedling. I found it under some satsuki tree in the nursery. Since it has a very good colour arrangement of flowers, I transplanted it in the nursery about 15 years ago. When I saw that the flowers of the top were pure red, I cut it and grafted three shoots to make them a trunk, but since I haven’t succeeded in it yet, I would like to continue to take care of it. The right one is Hakurei whose top has the flowers of Kozan. This is my error, too. I should have cut it and made a new top. Now the trunk of the top is so thick that I cannot cut it and make a new top.
Part 7. Small trees
The left photo is the Hikorin B, which was taken on 14th January 2022. Since it was transplanted from a terracotta pot in 2020, these shoots aren’t long. The second one is the whole figure after pruning. Perhaps, it is 8 years old. The third one is Hikorin C which was transplanted from a terracotta pot in 2020 and is 13 years old because the bottom of the trunk is much thicker than Hikorin B. The right one is Juko which was transplanted from other place in the nursery in 2020, where it had been planted for more than 20 years. Therefore, the bottom of the trunk is very thick.
These small trees were transplanted from other places in the nursery in 2020, where it had been planted for more than 20 years. Therefore, the bottoms of their trunks are very thick though they are small. The left photo is Kozan B whose taper of the trunk is very good, but it has a middle size of scar on the bottom of the trunk which I hope will be healed in three years. You can see the scar on the second one clearly. The third one is Fujizakura whose style isn’t good. And the right one is Kobai whose right first branch is dying, but since the bottom of the trunk is very thick, I keep it.
Section 2. Repotting of 8 small satsuki trees
I have introduced these 8 small satsuki trees since when they were the saplings. Six of them are Nikko which have smaller leaves and others are Hikorin and Shuho-no-hikari. Since the bottoms of the trunks grew thicker and thicker, the styles are good. But I decided to change the pots to larger terracotta pots to make the bottoms of trunks much thicker after I cut one fourth of the root balls and the fine roots on the sides of them, cleaned the bottoms of the trunks with a bamboo stick and removed a little bit hard soil from the surfaces of the root balls to make water run through them easily on 19th March. Since I didn’t wash the roots after removing only hard soil on the surface of the root ball, I made each tree have about one fifth of the flower buds to enjoy their flowers. It is because the soil of the toot balls was not hard. If all soil was hard, we have to remove it completely and had better wash the roots.
Part 1. Hikorin B
Though I had two large trees of Hikorin which had been planted in the nursery, I did not have any young tees in the pots. Therefore, I inserted a lot of cuttings into Kanuma soil in the seedling tray to keep some of them and to give the rest to our relatives and friends in about 2010. And I decided to make one of them a shohin or mini bonsai. The left photo is the whole figure of this tree after I pruned it before repotting on 17th March 2015. The style was not very good. But the trunk of this Hikorin had broken when it had fallen down from the shelf in about 2016. Though I restyled it by wiring the top, the style was not good. The middle photo was the figure after washing the roots in March 2020. The style was much better. And the style on the right photo is not bad when it had a lot of flowers on 22nd May 2021.
The style of this tree isn’t bad on the left photo which was taken on 19th March 2023 because the taper of the trunk is much better. It means that the whole figure of a young tree will be much better when the trunk will be thick even if the style was not very good. The second photo is the root ball one fourth of which is about to be cut by a sawtooth sickle. The right one is the root ball the side of which was scraped off by it.
After cleaning the bottom of this tree with a bamboo stick and removing the hard soil on the surface of root ball with it, I removed the soil from the side and bottom of the root ball lightly to make new roots grow easily. These roots of this tree on the left photo were so good that I thought that I could make it have one fifth of flower buds. The middle photo is the figure after the root ball was washed. Though the style after repotting is not very good on the right photo now, if I will make the right first branch much longer and the left first branch shorter, the style will be much better.
Part 2. Shuho-no-hikari
This tree was one of some saplings which I had grown to make roots of the large trees of Shuho-no-hikari in the nursery since about 2010. After I had succeeded in grafting the saplings on the bottoms of trunks, when I transplanted other saplings into terracotta pots from the seedling tray, finding the good shoot on the trunk of one of them to make the first curve near the bottom, I cut the trunk there. Therefore, the taper of this material was good on the left photo which was taken on 17th March 2015. The middle one was the figure after washing the roots in March 2020. Though the taper of the trunk was good, the style isn’t very good. Though it had a lot of flowers in May 2021 on the right one, the height was so low that you cannot judge whether the style is good or not. But since it had red flowers, I removed the branch.
The left photo is the figure of this tree whose trimming was finished at the end of 2022. You can see the clean tree after washing the root ball on the middle one because I pruned it before washing it. Though the style of this tree after repotting is good on the right one, since the bottom of the trunk isn’t thicker, the taper of the trunk isn’t very good.
Part 3. Nikko A
I wrote these sentences in my web site on 2nd April 2015.
About 15 years ago I found the small leaves on a branch of Nikko which was planted in the large terracotta pot. And though the branch had had only flowers of pink ground (jiai) for several years, when it had red-striped flowers, taking a lot of cuttings, I inserted them into the Kanuma soil. But when I repotted them, a lot of them had not grown large because the leaves were small and they were not given a lot of fertilisers. Therefore, I did not wire them. And when I repotted them two years ago again, I cut the trunks of a half of them very short (3 – 5 cm) to make small bonsai or mini bonsai.
Now I have 32 young trees of Nikko which have small leaves. And last year a few of them had only a few white flowers, some of them had only flowers of pink ground and others had red-striped flowers. This is a fact even if we took the cutting by the red-striped flowers. Therefore, if we would like to get good multicoloured flowers, we have to remove the saplings from the seedling tray, whose first flower is white.
Though we sometimes can see small leaves on branches of Nikko, such a tree has not been registered as a new variety in Japan. But since the satsuki trees which have small leaves are suitable for shohin or mini bonsai, I think it is a good idea to make these materials into shohin or mini bonsai.
Though one of these trees died, I added other one to this group because I have some photos. The left photo is the figure of Nikko A after styling on 16th March 2015. When I took the middle one of this tree after washing the roots on 20th March 2020, the bottom is much thicker and the taper of the trunk is very good though the style isn’t very good. When it had the flowers in 2021, the colour arrangement of these flowers wasn’t good on the right one.
The left photo is the whole figure of this tree before pruning on 19th March 2023. Though the style after washing the roots isn’t very good, since the taper of the trunk is very good on the middle photo, I thought I would like to enjoy it as bonsai. But I planted it in a larger terracotta pot to make the trunk much thicker (the right photo).
Part 4. Nikko B
When I styled this Nikko B with wiring after pruning in March 2015, it had a good shape on the left photo. Therefore, I hoped it would have a good colour arrangement of flowers. The style of this tree and the taper of the trunk are good on the middle photo after washing the roots on 20th March 2020. Though it had only several flower in 2021, it seemed to have a good colour arrangement of flowers on the right photo.
The left photo is the whole figure of this tree before pruning on 19th March 2023. The style after washing the roots is very good on the middle photo. The whole style after repotting on the right one is so good that I would like to make the bottom of the trunk thicker as soon as possible.
Part 5. Nikko C (or Shirokozan)
Though I had taken a lot of cuttings by the red-striped flowers, this tree has only white flowers. I should have thrown it into the garbage box when I found only white flowers. And I have kept it as a testimony which means my error of taking the cuttings, that is, since a lot of trees of Nikko have some white flowers, this is my error. But we have the varieties of Shirokozan which has only white flowers and Akakozan which has only red flowers. Since Nikko is a bud sport of Kozan, I may have to call this tree Shirokozan. Therefore, I think that there is no shame in having this tree.
The left photo is the whole figure of this tree after I giving up styling in March 2015. But I removed some branches and shoots. Since I wired it in about 2016, the figure after washing the roots in March 2020 isn’t bad on the middle one. The right one is the white flowers of this tree.
The left photo is the figure of this tree whose trimming was finished at the end of 2022. Since the trunk has some curves and the taper of the trunk is good, the style isn’t bad on the middle one which was taken on 19th March 2023. Though it lacks the right first branch after repotting on the right photo, I think I don’t have to make it by grafting because I would like o make it as a small bonsai.
Part 6. Nikko D
Since one of these Nikko died, I added other one to this group because I have some photos though I don’t have any photos of washing the roots in 2020. The basic style of this tree is good on the left photo after styling on 16th March 2015. But the colour arrangement of flower isn’t good on the right one.
The left photo is the whole figure of this tree before pruning on 19th March 2023. Since the trimming was finished at the end of 2022, the style isn’t bad. You can see a prototype of small bonsai on the middle one. The taper of the trunk is very good after repotting on the right one. Therefore, hoping that the bottom of the trunk will be much thicker, I have to make it have good branches.
Part 7. Nikko E
The left photo is the whole figure of this tree after I gave up styling in March 2015. But I removed some shoots and cut some branches short. Since its height was very low, the trunk seemed to be very thick on the middle one. And I changed the front side to the back when I repotted it in March 2020. When it had flowers in 2021, the colour arrangement isn’t bad on the right one,
The left photo is the whole figure of this tree before pruning on 19th March 2023. Though the trunk doesn’t have any good bends, since the taper of the trunk is very good, it looks like a good bonsai. But pruning it, the taper of the truk isn’t very good on the middle one. Therefore, judging from the whole figure on the right photo, I had better make it higher than now.
Part 8. Nikko F
After cutting the trunk of this tree short to make a small bonsai, I styled it with wiring in March 2015. Since we don’t have to mind the nebari of small satsuki bonsai, we can change the planting angle easily when the material is young. You can see the large scar on the lower part of the trunk on the middle one. If we keep the thick branches, the tree will grow thicker. But since we have to think the taper of the trunk, we had better remove the unnecessary thick branches. When this tree had the flowers on the right one in 2021, I hoped that it would have a good colour arrangement of flowers.
The left photo is the whole figure of this tree before pruning on 19th March 2023. After washing the root ball, the style and the taper of the trunk are very good on the middle one. Seeing the whole figure of this tree after repotting on the right one, if you can understand that it has passed 13 years since I took the cutting, you will be able to make small satsuki bonsai easily. And you will be able to enjoy the flowers of each young satsuki trees every year.
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