Removing flower buds from azalea
I’ve seen satsuki bloom in most months of the year, but they’re most likely to bloom around May. This is natural as the name satsuki (and old phrase for “fifth month”) refers to the month in which they bloom. Why, then, did my azalea’s single flower catch my attention today? Because I’d previously removed most of the other flower buds – this was one I’d missed.
Satsuki azalea
White blossom
I’ve been removing the flower buds in winter to divert more of the tree’s energy into producing foliage. I can either enjoy the flowers or get great spring growth – I can’t have both. As I’d like to speed along this tree’s development, I’ve been removing most of the buds.
Looking closer at the tree, I found a few others I’d missed. I removed them by gently bending the buds until they came loose.
Securing the stem below the bud
Bending the bud until it breaks away
Azalea flower buds and Spring shoots emerge from the same place. I work carefully when removing the buds this time of year to avoid breaking the tender new shoots.
Bud with new shoots
Bud removed
It’s ok to remove buds that have started to open, but at this point I usually leave them alone so I can enjoy the color.
Deep pink flower with light and dark green foliage
Once the majority of the flowers have bloomed, I remove them with fingers or scissors. I usually do this before the petals fall away as they have in the photo below.
After the petals fade away – stigma, style, and ovary revealed
Air layering a Japanese maple
Almost a year ago to the day I wrote about a Japanese maple I’d taken on that was ripe for several long-term projects (see Restoring an old Japanese maple). I started on the first, an air-layer, this past weekend at a BIB workshop.
Japanese maple
I would have layered the tree last year, but I had just repotted it and I wanted the tree to be strong before starting a layer. Now quite healthy, the tree is ready for layering.
Section to be air-layered
The first step is selecting a location for the new roots and removing a ring of bark just below that spot.
Bark removed
Why did I choose the narrow section of the trunk between two bulges that would have left me with a larger nebari? Short answer – this is actually the first of two layers. Once I remove the top of the tree, I plan to turn it on its side and layer it a second time to make a clump-style bonsai. For now, I simply need enough roots to allow me to separate the tree from the lower trunk. That’s the plan for now anyway.
After removing the bark, I applied a small amount of rooting hormone to the upper ring of exposed bark, wrapped the peeled area in moist white sphagnum moss, and covered the whole with plastic.
All wrapped up – layer complete
After preparing layer and minor cutback
I next turned my attention to a significant scar at the base of the trunk.
Large scar
Somehow the wound is actually closing from all sides as the roots below the scar are still alive. This gives me hope that the scar might someday close. To speed up the process, I opened up the edges of the scar and covered the entire area with cutpaste.
Re-opening the wound
Covering the open wound with cutpaste
Covering the rest of the scar with cutpaste
You likely noticed that the “cutpaste” looks more like chocolate pudding than the typical bonsai cutpaste. I used “joint caulk,” a Japanese product whose intended use I don’t fully understand. Junichiro Tanaka has been using the compound for some time on bonsai and has seen great results so I bought a tube and have been using it on all of my trees.
Joint Caulk-A (aka ジョインT コーク•A)
A few seats away from me, Carol was uncovering some scars that were treated one and two years ago. In the photo below, the upper scar was gouged out last year. The lower scar was treated two years ago and is now almost entirely healed over.
Scars on trident maple
After removing the cutpaste on the lower scar
I don’t expect the huge scar on my Japanese maple to heal so quickly. Even if I planted the tree in the ground, I’d still expect at least 3 years to pass before it closed up completely. As the tree still needs plenty of work, I’m in no hurry.
Jeff’s satsuki azalea
I couldn’t resist posting a photo of the azalea above. Jeff left it in the workshop so we could enjoy the flowers – I hope you enjoy them too. And thanks again for reading. Somehow this is my 300th post. Were it not for your readership and helpful comments, I’d have stopped long ago. Here’s to the next 300!
Best regards,
Jonas
Pine seedlings
I planted pine seeds again this year – black and red. The seeds came from Shikoku, Japan. It’s legal to import pine seeds – permits are available from the USDA - and the process is surprisingly simple. Once I got them home, I waited impatiently for late winter to begin preparing them for spring planting.
In past years, I soaked the pine seeds in water for one to three days and then planted the seeds that sank to the bottom of the glass. This year, at the advice of a friend, I scarified and stratified the seeds before planting (thanks “Juan”!). Instead of dropping the seeds into tap water, I poured near-boiling water over the seeds and let them cool and soak for 24 hours. The hot water scarifies the seeds by softening up their hard coating – a necessary step for germination. I then placed the seeds in plastic bags filled with moist white sphagnum moss. I placed these bags in the refrigerator where they were intended to sit for one to two weeks. By stratifying the seeds – placing them in a cold, moist environment that simulates natural spring conditions – I help the seeds break their dormancy so they can sprout.
One thing seemed to lead to another and I didn’t get around to actually planting the seeds for over a month. No matter – the seeds sprouted just fine.
Seedlings rising from the sand
To better gauge the effect of stratification, I planted a number of seeds directly after soaking them for 24 hours. In the photo below, you can see that the stratified seeds, on the left, have germinated much faster and with greater consistency than the un-stratified seeds to the right of the aluminium wire.
Stratified seeds :: un-stratified seeds
Continued warm weather is bringing more seeds into the light each day. It’s been a fun process to watch.
A seedling prepares to cast off its protective shell.
How are last year’s seeds doing? Pretty well. Most survived the seedling-cutting process and are now growing quickly. I’ve found that my pines take about two years to reach the height seedlings in Japan reach in their first year (see Bonsai Today #12 or #20 for comparison).
One-year old seedlings
Not all, however, are as healthy as this. The most vigorous 2-4″ tall – the stragglers, somewhat less. You can see the range of heights below.
One-year old seedlings
More vigorous seedlings
Less vigorous seedlings
For those who missed my posts about collecting and planting pine seeds, check out the following:
- Pine cone technique
- More pine cone technique
- Planting pine seeds
- How to create seedling cuttings – Japanese black pine
Shimpaku cuttings
A few months back I grabbed an armful of juniper branches from the green recycling bin at a Bay Island Bonsai workshop. I’d found both kishu and itoigawa shimapku branches and figured I could use them to make cuttings for grafting roots or branches. Although I’d made cuttings many times before, I wasn’t sure about what soil worked best to facilitate rooting or how long to leave new cuttings in the greenhouse before bringing them outside. An experiment was in order.
I tested three different soil mixes outside and in a greenhouse. Despite poor experimental design and uneven care after the cuttings were made, I was surprised to find fairly consistent results. I planted the cuttings in “houseplant soil” (an all-purpose soil mix rich in organic ingredients), perlite, and a mix of perlite and sand. The perlite yielded better results than the houseplant mix, and the sand and perlite mixture yielded better results than perlite alone. Overall, the cuttings I left outside fared better than those left in the greenhouse, but I suspect that’s mostly because the cuttings I left in the greenhouse were watered erratically. Here are some photos of the cuttings after a few months.
“Houseplant soil” (greenhouse) :: perlite (greenhouse)
“Houseplant soil” (greenhouse) :: “Houseplant soil” (outside)
Perlite and sand (greenhouse) :: “Houseplant soil” (outside)
The cuttings planted in perlite and sand fared equally well indoors and out. I wasn’t too surprised by this as Boon Manakitivipart and others recommended this mix and it offers a good balance of drainage and moisture retention. It’s also a sterile mix, unlike the “houseplant” mix I used. Why did I try the houseplant mix? Mostly out of curiosity. And why did I use cell packs instead of larger containers? Simply to save the time of wiring screens into more pots. I’ll repot all of the viable cuttings into bonsai soil this coming winter.
Last year’s cuttings
I shared this story less to encourage the use of perlite and sand than to encourage any amount of research on the topic. Many people are experts at this – are you one of them? If anyone knows of good resources about making cuttings, feel free to share. I used rooting hormone for all of the cuttings and made clean, slanted cuts with a grafting knife. I also planted all of the cuttings at an angle. Are there better approaches to preparing and planting the cuttings? I experimented with small, medium, and large sized cuttings and found that all lived, but there may be good reasons to start larger or smaller cuttings. Any suggestions?
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