Azalea prune timing

[Akage]

I just watched a video and the guy pruned his Azaleas back to a few branches, then added cut paste. At no time during this video does he mention the season he is doing this is…. Does anyone know when I can make a drastic prune to them with minimal damage?

 

[Glaucus]

You would do this on a healthy tree, in late winter, knowing you have the horticulture of azaleas down, and with a pretty good growing season for azalea in your climate. And putting the tree inside a green house with climate control afterwards.

Do you mean this channel:

Bonsai & 盆栽 from Japan

Thank you for watching. 1 I am not good at speaking English, not good at writing English. please kindly understand. 2 Our video is to enjoy the bonsai life. It is very important for you to read a textbook, a reference book. 3 Bonsai master is very experienced, if you try this at home, you may...

www.youtube.com

I wouldn't recommend people to prune that way that most Japanese satsuki bonsai professionals usually do.

I would instead try to prune like this, also late winter:

 

[Akage]

Different video, but I will watch the suggested material and see if that better matches my experience. Thank you

 

[Glaucus]

Well, I guess I can't guess what you watched.
So watch this one as well:

 

[Akage]

I watched this guy but a video from 9 years ago

 

[Glaucus]

I was close then! I saw he had some newer better videos. I tried mate.

If he sees this thread, he might tell you when he recorded that vidoe. But since it was 9 years ago, I doubt he remembers.

The longer the growing season, the less hot & dry your summers, the more opportunity you have for a hard chop.

 

[penumbra]

If you want flowers you prune after they bloom so they can set flowers for next year.

 

[Akage]

I want to thicken up the trunk as fast as possible. Not too concerned about flowers for now

 

[canoeguide]

I want to thicken up the trunk as fast as possible. Not too concerned about flowers for now

If you want a thicker trunk, you may want to consider not pruning it at all.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

You would do this on a healthy tree, in late winter, knowing you have the horticulture of azaleas down, and with a pretty good growing season for azalea in your climate. And putting the tree inside a green house with climate control afterwards.

Do you mean this channel:

Bonsai & 盆栽 from Japan

Thank you for watching. 1 I am not good at speaking English, not good at writing English. please kindly understand. 2 Our video is to enjoy the bonsai life. It is very important for you to read a textbook, a reference book. 3 Bonsai master is very experienced, if you try this at home, you may...

www.youtube.com

I wouldn't recommend people to prune that way that most Japanese satsuki bonsai professionals usually do.

I would instead try to prune like this, also late winter:

This video is a great video if one has a strong healthy tree. Note the timing is late winter and the technique is very harsh, however the tree is in a shape to respond vigorously for th entire growing season

Well, I guess I can't guess what you watched.
So watch this one as well:

Just viewed this video from Greenwood Bonsai. Wouldn’t recommend it for either pruning nor repotting.
- The pruning is basic hedge pruning. The tree’s tangled foliage in the pads reflects this technique was used frequently

The repot makes some key errors.
First the blob nebari was caused by the same technique the artist is using, scratch the surface and repot. Satsuki nebari has to be detailed during repotting and at least one other time during the year to define and refine the roots. If this isn’t done, the small roots in the nebari create blobs of roots.
Second the top surface needs soji badly, that’s what the media isn’t draining properly. In addition given the years the shin has been mistreated it also needs drilling to enhance aeration and water penetration.
Third the tie down should be with a chopstick tie down to avoid running a wire over the roots, which is what the artist actually did.

Finally the first Satsuki shown hadn’t had its roots properly managed either, otherwise they wouldn’t be sticking out separately from the trunk.

The Terry Erasmus video is much better. However he is pruning a well developed healthy overgrown Satsuki that was already styled. If one doesn’t have one of these trees, in this stage, it would be best not to use this method of pruning.

It would be much better is OP showed his example tree or trees. Then we could recommend pruning techniques tailored upon his needs.
Alternately narrowed down the question to specifics.

Cheers
DSD sends

 

[Glaucus]

There's many videos out there on YT. Some are from very enthusiastic western hobbyists, or bonsia artists who didn't specialize in satsuki. Others are from pro Japanese artists who move right up to the edge of what is possible in their climate with their skill, or try to go beyond.
I tried to guess which video you watched. It would have bee easier if you had just posted the video and asked your question. Or posted a picture of what you have, explained your goal. and asked for what to do.

If all you want is the fattest base of a trunk possible, then yes you wouldn't prune at all.
If you do prune early in the season, then you do not slow down the tree too much. If you prune mid-seasonm you literally take away most of the energy-generating surface during the time it could generate the most energy, when the days are longest.

This is why only pruning late winter is so good. You do not remove all leaves. You prune back all terminal shoots to 2 branches only. And you prune them so they position well. And if you have 1 very long shoot without sidebranches, then you prune back into old wood, removing all flowers. Which is why I linked that Satsuki channel video.
At first I thought you meant the Green Veil / Yamada-san channel. They have many videos where they take nice bonsai, prune into old wood very hard, leaving no leaves, and 60% of the comments are people saying they ruined a very nice bonsai.
Like this example:

Then two years later:

That's probably the boldest azalea bonsai cut on YT.

Sadly, part 2 isn't at the end of the growing season of year 1. And ther also isn't a part 3 where the tree looks really good.

Additionally, these videos would benefit from explaining what the short and long term goals are. And why pruning style option A is picked over pruning option B.

At the other extreme, we have videos where people just hedge shear to silhuette a satsuki that is past the peak of it's bloom. With no follow up.
I guess the Greenwood video is like that.

Then John Geanangel approach is quite different, as he is using cheap nursery material. If you can buy 2 gallon Chinzan and your climate in South Caroline is arguably even better than the climate in Japan. And you just buy a pickup truck of Chinzan and Gumpo from the local nursery, that are priced down as they are out of flower. And you just cut them back hard, because yolo. If you do it on many, at least one is going to end up looking pretty decent eventually. Very different from starting out with a 1000 USD 60 year old satsuki bonsai that already looked great.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

The above videos are very good. Not for Satsuki growing out, but excellent practice for cutting back strong satsuki.

On another associated topic. One issue I’ve always had with some Satsuki owners seem to do not pay attention to properly building out the nebari of their trees. If one looks at some of the videos by Bonsai Master one will find, he do pay attention curating the nebari of his trees on the large scale during repotting. The second video he’s moving fairly quick and only doing a minimal job of detailing. Likely because he is upvoting and would remove too much material for an up pot. On another of his repotting videos he shows how to do this properly. Not so much on the detail side however.

Cheers
DSD sends

 

[Glaucus]

Yeah, that channel has two videos with 'nebari' in the title that explain the cogwheel method.
Indeed, the video I linked is how to completely rebuild a finished satsuki from scratch. As refined foliage pads most likely cannot be beyond a certain age, and still look good. Though sadly I never saw a true expert put it that way.

The best repot videos are from large trees that are repotted way too late. If you do a repot on time, almost all of the kanuma is still intact. There is one where the bonsai was brought in neglected, with dark root patches. And in the end he puts an entire chopstick through the entire rootball from the top to show there's now a completely empty channel. And then he makes sure to fill up that channel with new kanuma soil.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Don’t want to blow up OP’s thread so this is my last post unless further info is related.

The issue with azaleas nebari is the nebari turns into a large blob of fused rootlets that is eventually smoothed over.

Was working on a large cascade Juko azalea last Friday that was will on its way to becoming fused. Spent well over an hour identifying the areas that were small roots caked with dirt and cleaning these channels out and snipping out the rootlets to redefine the nebari.

Sadly do not have an image now, but here’s a curated nebari finished the end of March after a full repot and drilling the shin.



Cheers
DSD sends

 

[Glaucus]

Yes, it can be hard to identify the hardness of a root, which you do not want to rake near or damage at all, or the hardness of compacted muck/soil, which is essential to remove. Not too sure what the magical trick is here. But if you use kanuma, it is much much easier to see what the roots are doing. Kanuma will fall out. If you use peat/perlite, your roots will be way denser. Roots and soil are literally one and the same. You can bare root an azalea in kanuma. But when it is in peat and it filled the container with roots, all you can do is cut off the bottom of the root ball and rake it open. Or potentially remove almost all roots, and thus also almost all foliage.

Roots in peat also tend to grow upward. If you have 2cm of peat sitting on top of your root ball, then 1 year later with good growth, it will all be roots as well. Like the root ball curls upward towards the trunk.
They don't see, o curl around and constrict themselves, though.

 

[Glaucus]

@Deep Sea Diver
Not sure if this Corin Greenwood video was posted just an hour before you posted, or an hour after you posted:

He says he will do a follow up. This guy is a major bonsai person/professional in the UK. Not sure if his satsuki is his specialty. He says he will do a follow up. That's definitely helpful. And sometimes needed to judge what bonsai experts not specialized in satsuki are actually doing.

He is in the UK with an unheated greenhouse, which matters for the response you'd get.

He also clearly expresses his belief that shocking a satsuki into knowing it has no leaves at all, and forcing it to bud back over, is superior to keeping just a few leaves. In the post-flower pruning context.
Which has some logic behind it. But I am not entirely convinced. I also like the logic on keeping some leaves to for sure keep the sap flow moving through the tree.

What's key for western artists is if they can take a Japanese import, keep it just as healthy, but improve it as a bonsai.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Thanks. Do know who he is. Also that he has a long history with bonsai. Yes, Satsuki is not his speciality.

Have seen both ways. The wisdom over the years is that a tree with green on pruned branches will have a 100% chance of backbudding, while those without have a lesser chance. Reading old Japanese articles have heard a number like 60% mentioned… the highest number btw.

What heard just recently from Dave DeGroot is that the ey is to cut all branches to get the best response… with or without green leaves. Have tried this. The bare branches have a lesser chance of budding… but different cultivars imho do better then others… different types, including Satsuki, kurume, linnerfolium, hybrids and kiusianum.

Best
DSD sends

 

[Glaucus]

Video by Bonsaischule Wenddorf in Germany:

At least I think so. It says 'Don Pot', no advertisements or links, except to the pots section of Wenddorf website.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

This is an excellent learning video, thank you!

Wish he would explain a bit more, but can read between the lines mostly. Didn’t get the second fertilizer though.

Looks like all the trees are in a greenhouse? That should hasten development and keep the flowers for getting turned to mush in the rain!

Cheers
DSD sends

 

[Glaucus]

It is horn meal/horn shavings. Seems he also adds peat on top at the end?
Also funny aesthetic decision to wire the branches so much downward.