My Satsuki "Eikan"

This is a tree I bought in anticipation of moving from the colder climes of Massachusetts to the warmer (ok, really HOT) region of North Georgia. Satsukis are considered marginal in southern New England and potted trees require special winter protection. I'd always been drawn to the marvelous trunks of the old satuki azaleas I'd seen in magazines, but couldn't risk losing an expensive piece of stock due to the typical winter cold experienced each year in Massachusetts. So, when the move to Georgia was becoming a reality, I decided to purchase this tree. Imported in late 2008, it had been bare rooted and defoliated, then re-planted in large nursey can. Here is a picture of the tree in my backyard in Georgia in November, 2009.



Here is a piture of the trunk base...

Here is the tree after wiring it out completely, probably 15+ hours of work.

that is going to be a really good one, the trunk base is quite stunning.

looking forward to keeping up with this one

cheers Marcus

potentially the very bottom branch could be layered off - it is a bit wrong in the first curve and will soon take a lot of strength from the upper parts

Spring of 2011 was the time to re-pot. The root system had recovered nicely from it's bare rooting several years earlier.


After a bit of root reduction, I put the tree into this large mica pot.

This past spring, I re-potted into a more appropriate, Chinese stoneware pot.

This tree is very strong. It was has been pruned back twice this year, most recently about 3 weeks ago. Here it is as of this morning. It needs some fine wiring, but more importantly, it needs more foliage to fill in the left side of the tree.

marcus watts wrote:that is going to be a really good one, the trunk base is quite stunning.

looking forward to keeping up with this one

cheers Marcus

potentially the very bottom branch could be layered off - it is a bit wrong in the first curve and will soon take a lot of strength from the upper parts

Thanks Marcus. I actually removed over 50% of that first left branch when I first acquired the tree...the top of it grew upwards and parallel to the trunk and represented a large protion of the foliage on the left side of the trunk. I have been consciously increasing the volume of foliage on the left side through wiring out the back branches to the left and hoping for adventitious buds to pop near that first outward curve on the left. No luck yet, though I've got some newer, smaller branches in the lower left trunk that are being developed. I need that branch right now to help with balance, but if I get options popping in the future, I will probably lose it. Thanks again,

Dave

This is a very nice Satsuki Dave, how about the blooming with the weather down there?

Xuan

The tree loves GA and produces hundreds of flower buds...which I have usually removed since the tree has been in development , so I don't have any pictures of the tree fully in bloom. I do have some pictures of flowers from buds that I somehow missed.

Outstanding Dave... and I love the pot choice.

That's a real beauty, Dave. And contrary to popular myth, there's nothing wrong with developing satsuki AND enjoying flowers too. They just don't have that big of an impact one way or the other on strong, healthy plants.

R

Justin Hervey wrote:Outstanding Dave... and I love the pot choice.

Thanks, I appreciate the feedback on the pot.

Russell Coker wrote:

That's a real beauty, Dave. And contrary to popular myth, there's nothing wrong with developing satsuki AND enjoying flowers too. They just don't have that big of an impact one way or the other on strong, healthy plants.

R

Good to know, Russell...removing flower buds has got to be one of my least favorite things to do. So, from now on, just a judicious thinning .

Kinda like getting up on Christmas morning and throwing all of your presents into the garbage, isn't it?

Updating some of my threads today.  Here is the the azalea at the Atlanta Bonsai Society show back in May of this year...it placed first in the Enthusiast category  

nice tree. BTW, I saw a yew on a bench in one of your pictures. Have you done anything more with it? I'm a bit partial to them.

Thanks Peter. That's a yew aI dug from my yard in MA when I lived there. It's healthy but slow growing here in N. GA, so Im still growing out the canopy. I've got a better, more refined yew that I will post here shortly.

Dave,

Congrats, beautiful tree.

Augustine

augustine wrote:Dave,

Congrats, beautiful tree.

Augustine

Thank you!

It would be so much happier further south. I'm thinking north/central Gulf Coast, on a bay..

Russell Coker wrote:

It would be so much happier further south.  I'm thinking north/central Gulf Coast, on a bay..

Well, maybe for a week long vacation...it's going to be falling into the low single digits here in the next two to three days and the azalea is stuffed under the deck and covered with oak leaves...I'm coming, too  .