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Homing in on the ideal environment for satsuki azaleas

September 20, 2019 by Jonas Dupuich

A few months ago, two satsuki professionals visited my garden. The weather was unseasonably warm when they arrived – it reached 102, an unusual high for June – and they were worried I wasn’t watering my azaleas enough. They repeatedly stressed that azaleas don’t do well when they dry out or when it gets too hot. I watered a lot that day.

Just two days later, they awoke to cool, cloudy weather in the low 60s. Too cold, they thought, for satsuki to grow very well. They suggested I look into getting a greenhouse.

Fortunately, I had a greenhouse I could use to perform a test. I placed a few azaleas in the greenhouse – some healthy, some weak – while the rest stayed outside under 30% shade cloth.

Two of the trees were exposed root ‘Shirokozakura.’ They had both leafed out well in spring but neither had produced elongated shoots. Here’s what they looked like this month.

Exposed root satsuki azaleas

Exposed root satsuki azaleas – ‘Shirokozakura’

One of the trees was in a greenhouse but didn’t receive much fertilizer. The other tree stayed outdoors but was fertilized regularly. Any guesses which is which?

I removed the elongated shoots as they won’t be part of the trees’ final design. The tree on the left had about ten of these shoots while the tree on the right had almost thirty.

Long shoots

Lots of long shoots

After removing the long shoots

After removing the long shoots – 18″

I also compared the foliage between the two trees, but there the differences were subtle. The tree with long shoots had slightly smaller leaves, while the tree with fewer shoots had larger leaves. Does this change your guess?

It turns out the tree with the long shoots – and smaller leaves – was the one in the greenhouse.

It’s tempting to say the greenhouse produced growth that I’m not interested in keeping – the long shoots – so I’d be better off keeping my azaleas outside. Long shoots, however, are a sign of general vigor in azaleas, and the more vigorous the tree, the better it can respond to training as bonsai.

I can also note that we had a great summer this year. It’s not uncommon where I live for summer days to start out cold and cloudy and then warm up in the afternoon, but this year was consistently warm (as attested by my farmer’s tan).

If we were in for a cool summer, I think satsuki azaleas would do well in a greenhouse where I live. The ideal greenhouse would have retractable walls and/or roof so the trees could get sunshine when it’s available and warmth when it’s cloudy. But given the subtlety of the differences, I’m happy to keep my azaleas outdoors for the time being.

✕

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Filed Under: Bonsai Care Tagged With: Satsuki

Previous Post: « Tips for applying liquid fertilizer
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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Brian Schindler says

    September 25, 2019 at 11:57 am

    Jonas,
    A great experiment. Have you noticed any change in azalea growth with acidification of our high ph water?

    • Jonas Dupuich says

      September 25, 2019 at 2:09 pm

      Thanks Brian! My azaleas are darker than ever this year, but I don’t know how much of that is attributable to the acidification and how much to the change in fertilizer. I’m alternating between Dyna-Gro and fish emulsion. The plan is to do the same next year as I’m really happy with the results.

    • Lee Hardt says

      September 26, 2019 at 10:16 pm

      Hey Brian,

      I have tried the acidic miracle grow “miracid” this year and got some over the top growth. Up here in my area we do not suffer the carbonates and bicarbonates like some places in the bay area.

      L~

  2. Lee Hardt says

    September 26, 2019 at 10:13 pm

    Hey Jonas, hope all is well.

    I’m hoping to come out this fall to some BYOT clinics.

    One of the things I learned about the longer branches it so leave some on in places that you want to extend the pads. In late Jan or when that tree gets very flexible you can wire them out flat to work the pads larger. Of course ugly water shoots on the trunk most likely wont fall in to this group.

    Great read, hope to see you soon.

    Lee

    • Jonas Dupuich says

      September 27, 2019 at 11:17 am

      Great point Lee, thanks! The long shoots are really useful on the trunk if you need a new branch or on pads that need to thicken or lengthen.

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