satsuki gyoten Norway

satsuki in bloom[img][/img]

I like this a lot...looks healthy too!

Nice tree, I have couple of Satsuki but never had a chance so far to get a Gyoten variety.
Xuan

'Gyoten' is interesting. But what about the red sport of 'Gyoten', 'Hanazono'?



There's I think one more sport of 'Gyoten' that is similar. To me 'Gyoten' flowers are too identical. But I like the pink with white centers.

Also, 'Choyo':



gloggi, does your satsuki do well in your climate? 'Gyoten' is from the warm climate loving wing of satsuki. I assume you keep it in a greenhouse during winter. But you will also have shorter growing seasons compared to southern Japan.

I am interested as I want to develop new cultivar that are similar to satsuki but are more suited to European climate.

Hi Glaucus,
Your Choyo looks really nice
Xuan

Sorry, it's not mine.

I wanted to show the variety in satsuki cultivar. 'Choyo' is a sibling of 'Gyoten'. But I still think 'Gyoten' is nicer than 'Kaho', as a cultivar.

Glaucus wrote:'Gyoten' is interesting. But what about the red sport of 'Gyoten', 'Hanazono'?



There's I think one more sport of 'Gyoten' that is similar. To me 'Gyoten' flowers are too identical. But I like the pink with white centers.

Also, 'Choyo':



gloggi, does your satsuki do well in your climate? 'Gyoten' is from the warm climate loving wing of satsuki. I assume you keep it in a greenhouse during winter. But you will also have shorter growing seasons compared to southern Japan.

I am interested as I want to develop new cultivar that are similar to satsuki but are more suited to European climate.

Yes, they do well in Norway , keep it in greenhouse when there are too many minus degrees,but have it outside when there are + degrees .I live in westcoast of Norway ( stavanger) and there are long growing season , in the summer it is night only 4-5 hour , but in the winter it is 17 hour . in the westcoast it is very chilli ,

Yes, looking at Norway on a hardiness map the coast is actually surprisingly mild. I guess that helps well. But about the growing season, I don't think the long daylight helps that.

I hope to develop satsuki azalea for gardens. The problem with the Japanese cultivar is that sometimes they don't harden off well enough in autumn. And in autumn the days in Norway will already be shorter. Mainland NW Europe will of course be the same to a lesser degree. But 'Gyoten' is a variety that has most of it's genes from the R. Tamurae species, which lives on coastal slopes. This is as far south as a Northern latitude of 30 degrees. Quite a lot lower than 58 degrees.
Cultivar like 'Kozan' are more R. indicum based and are more hardy. 'Kozan' was first found in a temple in the mountains near Nikko city and is a lot more hardy than 'Gyoten', 'Kaho', 'Eikan' and the other similar ones.

But yours looks healthy, of course. Be careful of very early frost after a cool summer, though. Once it's deep winter, it will take some degrees of frost, as you may know.

You probably know most of this, but sometimes I see posts of people losing their expensive satsuki bonsai to frost which doesn't really help the popularity of satsuki in general.

Hey, great tree. Nice to see someone doing great in Norway! My azalea died this winter sadly. Guess it was too cold for it. Didnt have a greenhouse or garage to put it.

That's sad and that's why I want to develop more hardy azalea that have more interesting flowers than the hardy garden azalea that are available. This will take 10 or 20 years, though.
Still, if it is kept in a small pot maybe even the hardy garden azalea need extra protection.

Storm, maybe you can try 'Kozan'.
The only 'real' satsuki I have in large form is 'Kozan' and I will try to root some cuttings besides growing seeds.

Most satsuki you can buy in Europe are satsuki bonsai. They need to be imported from Japan. This increases the cost tremendously because of strict rules, quarantine, bare rooting and whatnot and makes it more difficult for people to do satsuki for bonsai or for flowers, sadly.

This is also why I think everyone should try to root the branches they remove from their satsuki. Azalea ought to be beginner bonsai.


[edit]

Just realized you never said you had a satsuki azalea. Could have been another type of azalea, of course.

gloggi wrote:satsuki in bloom[img][/img]

Hi Gloggi,
Amazing, your satsuki looks quite similar to this one of mine it is a KOKUO,
the one the background with bigger flowers is a KOZAN NISHIKI i belief.
It is of course only looking at pictures.

regards, Sunip

Exactly, because if you put them side by side or if you compare the genes, you will suddenly find out they are very different. Their pink is very similar, though.

Glaucus wrote:Exactly, because if you put them side by side or if you compare the genes, you will suddenly find out they are very different. Their pink is very similar, though.

Hi Glaucus.
Can you tell us more?
Sunip

'Gyoten' is a hybrid with a large influence of R. tamurae. Maybe it is even 100% R. tamurae. It's the so called maruba satsuki.

'Kakuo' is a hybrid with as parents 'Nikko' and R. kiusianum. R. kiusianum is a small flowering azalea that is popular as a hardy garden azalea all over Europe and the US. It is also one of the species used in the kurume and kirishima azaleas and other landscape azaleas.
'Nikko' is a sport of 'Kozan'. So in a sense 'Kakuo' is only 50% satsuki.

This is why 'Kakuo' has such small flowers and flowers early. It should also be very winter hardy for a satsuki.
'Gyoten' is like the opposite of this. More heat loving, larger flowers, later blooms.

So in a sense they represent the opposites of the cultivar the Japanese prefer to grow bonsai with. Actually, 'Kaho' is mainly a pre-bonsai cultivar where 'Kakuo' is a cultivar developed with small bonsai in mind. 'Gyoten' is a sport of 'Kaho'. 'Kaho' is very old and 'Kakuo' is quite new.

Glaucus,

Thanks for your informative posts. There is a lot going on in what we call "satsuki"! Before I went to Kanuma I assumed a satsuki was just a satsuki and they all had the same likes and dislikes. Boy, was I wrong! Temperature preferences was the biggest surprise. The 'Kozan' group is just barely happy here on the Gulf Coast, cold weather satsuki like 'Kinsai' and 'Matsuname' die out after a couple of years - but 'Sangosai' does well here.

'Kaho' and 'Gyoten' have always been two of my favorites, they always look so vigorous and healthy and love our hot weather. 'Choyo' and 'Hanazono' are really beautiful too. At the Bonsai Park, we had a very large 'Usugi-gyoten'. I was always told that it was the biggest example of that variety. Beautiful thing, I'm surprised you didn't mention it too.

Thanks again,

R

Hi,
This satsuki is Sold to me as a KOKUO,
Now i learn from you it is a KAKUO!
It has indeed small flowers and leaves.
Thanks for ID, Sunip

Glaucus, I agree with Russel. Your satsuki posts are very informative and appreciated. Can you tell us about your training? Are you a nursery professional?
Thanks again for your participation.

I'm sure he has told us about it previously, but for those who missed that thread, HERE is Glaucus's great website. I'll add my thanks for your contributions as well.

Thanks for that, Fi!

Russell, thanks for telling me about how satsuki do in the climate there and that it is consistent with what I have heard from others.


Yes, that is the link to my site. I am very far from a professional. I have little experience.
I wanted to do a bit more than growing vegetables so I searched online a bit about bonsai. There I was a picture of a satsuki azalea. The many different flowers intrigued me. I had a hard time figuring out what 'satsuki' means.

When I found out about hybridization, I realized that would be more fun for me than bonsai. Then I couldn't find many satsuki azaleas here in the nurseries. One of the reason is that many aren't winter hardy and many are temperamental. There have also been no azalea hybridizer in Europe ever hybridized with satsuki.
So then my goal for hybridizing was clear.

In the mean time I memorized the main part of the satsuki family tree.

There's people here who have grown azaleas for many years. There's people who went to Kanuma. There are people who worked in a satsuki nursery in Japan (don't remember that was on this site).

I will be growing hundreds of azalea from seed with different percentages of satsuki genes in the coming 10 to 20 years.

I am also grateful for your contributions Glaucus and wish you well with your hybridisation endeavours. I have grown a few satsuki from seed and the wait for first flowers and seeing all the differences from their parents that they display absolutely fascinating.