Bonsai Care
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A Word about Defoliation
Do not defoliate Hornbeam, Beech, Crabapple & Cherry.
Alternating leaf trees that CAN be defoliatated are Apricot, Stewartia, Eleagnus, Chinese & Japanese Quince, Elms, Zelkova & Hackberry. Your trees will produce a smaller second flush of growth on the plant, more ramification and the finer branching as well.
The timing to do this defoliation is right after the first cut-back of your elongating shoots in early summer. We then defoliate 80 to 90% of the outer canopy. At that time, do not apply firtiliser. After harding off of the new growth you can start firtilizing again.
Defoliating Trident Maples
Remember, you did not fertilize the tree until now to avoid too long internodes, except for feeding it with liquid kelp and liquid fish (a very mild fertilizer).
You can defoliate Trident maples up to 4 times a year.
The 1st POCD, aka Partial Outer Canopy Defoliation is done in the 1st part of May after the 1st flush hardens off, when the extension growth has 6 to 10 pairs of leafs.
If there is no extension growth after the secondary growth, then don't defoliate the tree again.
The same goes by the 3rd and 4th defoliation.
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This is by far the best tutorial you could find about repotting bonsai trees, "covering a lot of ground" on a range of use cases you might have to tackle when repotting.
One to watch. And if you think you know a thing or two on the subject, watch it still and let me know if it was worth your time.
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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.
Satsuki with its 3-to-5000 varienties 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.
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Trees grow from extracting the carbon they find in the 0.04% CO² in our air. Not from the ground, not from the water they find in there. They break apart the carbon from the air and release the oxygen for us to breathe. The carbon is converted to glucose, then to cellulose and finally into wood itself.
That is why trees thrive in pots: they only need ground to anchor their roots and extract additional building blocks. This is why growing trees is such a slow process.
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