The best time to repot Junipers is March/April, up to very early May.
Juniperus Rigida (Tosha) can be repotted later, early to end of May, for they tend to wake up slightly later.
Source: Peter Warren (saruyama.co.uk)
Best time for major branch removal / trimming is spring, just as the tree is coming out of dormancy.
Best time for major wiring / bending (trunk and primary branches) is also spring, or in early fall just as temps cool.
Avoid this type of work in June, July, and August, the bark might separate from the cambium layer and your Shinpaku tree could die as a result. Light pruning is fine, but hard bending is a "no-no".
Best time for foliage removal is during the growing season, sparingly to maintain a clean look on finished trees.
Source: Brian Van Fleet - https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/juniper-bonsai-styling-timing.36703/
The more I read about Satsuki azalea, the more interesting it tends to become. I already was aware that, due to its different requirements in care taking, Satsuki is a very different branch in the bonsai growers industry, with its own rules and depth in quality appreciation. You can follow the progression of my personal collection here.
Satsuki with its approx. 5000 variants is only one of the many cultivars of Azalea, 20 of which you can find in the azalea database by Mark Nijland.
To emphasize their beautiful bloom, rather than developing a more interesting bonsai shape, Satsuki tend to be grown into so called "flower towers".
My favourites though are in fact those well shaped -mostly as moyogi (informal upright) styled- ones, for their magestic foliage and bark colour combination, where the flowers come as a plus. After all, it only takes 30 years to style one.
Peter Warren, a reknowned UK based Satsuki bonsai specialist, stresses to choose well, for the flower tower variaties are not at all suited to be shaped into a "classical" bonsai style.
The idea of this article is that it grows, while sharing my research findings and insights in handling Japanese black pines (kuromatsu).
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