And, what do we do with them?
This photo essay offers several answers.
June and July are Satsuki Azalea months. After flowering the entire flower, with the ovary, is removed.
Another Satsuki losing its flowers.
Carmen has found some tight wire, something else to watch for at this time of year.
This one, the Kinsai variety, has thready flower petals—the desired type—but it will occasionally throw out a flower with normal petal size. If you like the thready, spidery flower petals it is best to cut off the larger flowers, like the one held in the hand.
After removing remaining flowers the shoots are cut back to two leaves, a technique called “fishtail”. This sets the azalea up for summer regrowth, more ramification, and shorter shoots—much like decandling black pine.
Decandling multiple flush pines is also done in late spring. Here a Japanese Black Pine is being decandled. In the Pacific Northwest our decandling window has just closed, which is the couple weeks that allow the plant sufficient growing season following the candle cut to regrow. If we cut too late, we might get too small needles which will weaken the pine. Or, worse, if cut in late July here in the Northwest, grow only buds that do not open into shoots.
Although fall is prime time for big cuts on pines, modest extensions may be removed at the same time as decandling. These cuts may provide extra power for weak areas down below, as this tree showed this year.
Levitate your extensions!
A small black pine is decandled.
An old black pine at the Portland Japanese Garden, just before for decandling.
After decandling and needle pulling. A branch on the lower left was removed to show more of the lower trunk. And the moss that needs removing…
Another plant worked on in June: Boxwood. Long shoots indicate vigor and readiness to be worked on.
We cut the lower shoots on this Japanese Boxwood, leaving the crown of the tallest trunk alone as it appeared weak. If we always trim uniformly, we may simply punt imbalances down the road.
Smoothing out large cuts is well-timed in June, as the cambium is still quite active and there is less chance of disease from entering a wound when the weather dries out (at least, our dry season in the Northwest is the summer months).
Defoliation of deciduous trees is high on the list of June activities. Here is a Stewartia.
After a shoot trim, cutting the remaining large leaves in half helps balance the plant and allows light to the interior.
After partial defoliation. The small shoots at the base are root grafts put in a few months ago, during repotting season.
And accent plants / large kusamono compositions may be trimmed for a reset in June…
…after trimming and pinching the hemlock shoots.
This late spring period—just as growth is hardening off—is a good time for a host of plants to be reset and rebalanced. Some plants may regrow over the summer, like Trident Maples. Others, like Beech, won’t likely regrow, but these are still important techniques to apply. If skipped, the exteriors of our bonsai will get strong and the interior shoots will die off.