In addition to its stunning (some might say gaudy) floral display, this Satsuki azalea possesses some other powerful features. Though when it's in full bloom like this, they might be easy to overlook.
A couple posts ago we featured some flowering bonsai brilliance from the 2016 Satsuki azalea Bonsai festival at Ueno Park in Tokyo. To continue in the same vein, I thought we would dig up last year’s post on the 2015 Ueno festival. Not only does it have information you might find interesting, but most of you probably haven’t seen it anyway. And if you’re anything like me, even if you have seen it, you would have forgotten by now.
Satsuki means fifth month (May) in Japanese. In this case late May (the dates on the sign below say May 27th to June 1st), though you might imagine Satsuki would bloom a little earlier in more southerly environs.
Satsuki, almost more than any other plant, show just how far humans will push nature in the quest for beauty and distinction. Robert Callaham’s benchmark book, Satsuki for Bonsai and Azalea Enthusiasts (out of print) lists over 1,600 cultivars and no doubt new ones are being developed as you read this.
But is it all too much? After a few moments of simple amazement when you first see these spectacular flowers, you might notice just how far from natural these cultivars have come. Some seem gaudy or even synthetic and such solid masses of flowers appear unnatural.
This might be one of the reasons Satsuki bonsai have their own shows. They have gone so far in their own direction that comparing them with other more subtle or less colorful trees just doesn’t make sense.
You can see the photos shown here and other photos from the festival in several places on the web. I took the easy route and just borrowed from Empire Bonsai (who as it turned out, borrowed from Do-ria on Reddit and Makoto Tsuji on Facebook).
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