This is a Rhododendron ‘Blue Diamond’ pulled from a garden about 10 years ago. It developed quickly but in recent years has been temperamental and hard to refine further. I decided that this year I would repot and give myself the chance to check on the roots. This is it in the old pot. I like both sides to this tree. One allows more flowers to be viewed and the other shows off the trunk movement. A nice combination.
I wanted to change the angle of the tree slightly to drop the long branch a bit. The old pot was too small in my view and the tree was raised up considerably in the pot. I needed to work on the surface roots and clear the old crust that had formed over the years from fertiliser pellets. I wasn’t happy with how the water was penetrating into the rootball and thought that this may have been part of the health problem with the tree. When I started the repot I was able to clear a lot of unwanted root away from the trunk base to expose a larger nebari. I also got rid of some old compacted garden soil in there too. As the tree was going into a bigger pot I was able to leave most of the finer root underneath the tree. The new pot isn’t an ideal shape but the size will be better for the tree until something better comes along. Here’s the tree after repotting and a few close ups.
This tree has never been in Kanuma which I personally don’t like. I am aware that if you buy a satsuki in Kanuma you never change it. I checked my kanuma stock after repotting another satusuki in my collection and found I only had a heavy grade of it left. As the new pot was a lot deaper I decided to add this to the bottom layer of the pot along with a heavy grit to help aid drainage. At my next repot I’ll assess the trees health and root growth and make a decision on any future potting mix for this tree. The rest of the mix for this tree was akadama and kyodama.
I am toying with the idea of removing all flower buds this year to promote growth but, as the flowering period for this tree is so short, I might just leave them. I always go over the tree after flowering to remove the seed pods to reduce the stress. I also get a rust type speckle on the leaves every Summer and will be spraying fungicide this year in an attempt to stop this. You can see the speckle on some of the close ups above. If you know what this is or can offer advice, I’d be happy to hear it.
Bonsai Eejit 
I like what you have done with the tree but I cannot say I like the choice of pot though ,liked the old one better ,
I wonder if we expect too much of some Rhododendrons as bonsai , growing in a pot rather than the ground clearly limits vigour to a greater or lesser extend and so prolific flowering on top of this loss of vigour may means we cannot expect so much in other areas of development , I would completely remove flower buds now , it does not matter how short the flowering period is the energy is used up in making the flowers , let it flower every 3 or 4 years , just an idea 🙂
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I liked the shape of the other pot for this but it was too small and the wrong colour. I think the colour of this pot is more suitable as it goes well with the bark colour. However, it’s too heavy and I don’t like the fluted lip on the pot. Couldn’t find a pot I liked for it 😉 I think I’ll thin the flower buds out leaving a handful for a ‘little’ colour this year. There are 2-3 at each branch so removing 4/5 of the flowers should help. Phil removed all the flowers from the quince. I’ll miss it’s colour in the garden this year 🙂 Any ideas about the rust, if that’s what it is?
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