It’s time to remove the flowers, pruning to remove the branches sporting the fat-petal flowers while it’s still easy to tell which are which.
Then trim it back:
And lightly wire:
A few weeks later and it’s filling out nicely.
Fast-Forward to April 2019, nearly a full year later. The tree is growing well and within a month of flowering. I’m debating about the front, and have been toying with this front, which gives the appearance of a cascading first branch. If I go with this front, I’ll re-orient the tree in its pot to center it and keep the exposed roots upright and not leaning. I like the widening canopy as well.
Here is the tree in bloom, 2019:
And in our club show, just a little past peak blooming:
And over Memorial Day Weekend 2019, I had a chance to clean it up again. From this:
To this, with a rough trimming to start:
Finally, flowers removed, and more pruning done. Here is the final result:
I have been studying bonsai since 1994, in an ever-increasing obsessive fashion. In our last 5 years prior to moving from Iowa to Alabama pursuing a career in the foodservice industry, my bonsai collection was limited to a few varieties that could survive brutal winters outside, or winters under dim light in the dank basement of our humble duplex...my wife puts up with a lot. Including the trailer hitch I put on our brown 1983 Chrysler New Yorker to pull a U-Haul full of trees to Nashville for a 3-month stop along the career path that led us to Alabama. 12 years later, we no longer have the New Yorker; and not a single one of those trees remain on my bench, having given the last holdout to a new club member this summer. I prefer collecting native trees and buying the classical species used in Japan, feeding organic, and reading everything I can get my hands on.
View all posts by Brian VF
Published
One thought on “Satsuki Azalea, ‘Kinsai’ cleanup…x2”
Reblogged this on Wolf's Birding and Bonsai Blog.