Overwintering bonsai

TreeBay

SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA -

Here in the Northern hemisphere, the growing season is drawing to a close. Many of us have already begun our preparations for overwintering. I thought it would be interesting if we discuss overwintering in the context of the different areas in which we live.

I'm located about 45 miles southeast of San Francisco. Winters here are usually very mild, with some heavy rainstorms. We only occasionally get hail and a couple of weeks when the temperature will drop into the high 20s (F) at night.

My winter protection usually just consists of moving frost tender plants like ficus, bougainvillea and crepe myrtle into a (mostly) unheated greenhouse. Those few weeks when it gets really cold, I will leave a small space heater going.

This is all about 3-4 weeks in the future. Currently the leaves have just begun to fall. During the next few weeks, I'll be working to keep the soil surface clear of leaf litter from bonsai and surrounding neighborhood trees, and tilting pots when we get several days' continuous rain.

What's up in your neighborhood?

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Soildoc

Here in Mississippi, I've brought my frost-sensitive stuff in the house and have some of them under growlights, others on display around the house. For the most part, I've taken my frost hardy stuff out of their pot and planted them in the ground. I still have a few in pots that I move under the porch on cold nights. My main problem is the silly weather we've had. Some days its 70-80 with 40-50 degree nights and sometimes is 50's in the day with 30's at night. I'm thinking that the stuff I haven't planted in the ground will spend the winter in a frame covered with visquene on the back porch.

Bonsainut

Hey guys,
I feel like Im being left out of something here in zone 10. My trees never move out of full sun 365 days a year. I wish I needed a unheated greenhouse...

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Lethal Use of Farce

Jay

Hi all. I am a novice in Zone 5/6, near the meeting of NY, NJ, and Penn. I have kept Bonsai for several years indoors. This is my first wintering of hardy plants. I have an unheated garage which I have placed a shelf near the north facing window. The shelf has a large lip ( 3 inches) so as to allow for the trees and a liberal amount of peat moss around them for some insulation. In addition I have a home made heater of sorts to prevent super low temps from harming the trees. I have a 1/2 inch copper tube under the shelf. The tube is filled and there is an electric heat tape on the copper when the temps fall below 32 F, the heat tape will come on. Being it is below the shelf the heat will rise. It is my opinion it will give a slight heating affect to the shelf. I hope it will reduce the possibility of single digit temps without bringing the temps up to high. I will get back to you all as the winter progresses.

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shane1130

I live in Northern Minnesota, zone 3-4. My house is near the lake so it is zone 4. All of my outdoor plants are zone hardy to the area. So I just bury the pots and cover the tops with snow. The past few years I have taken my platns out as soon as it starts to thaw and put them under lights in my basement for a month or so. My reason for this is the freeze-thawing in the early spring affects potted plants negatively.
I lost my trees the first couple of years.

ripsgreentree

In central California our tempratures will take wider swings than on the coast. Most years are not hard and some frost sencitive plants will need protection. We do however (once every ten or so years ) get sub zero artic tempratures that will last for one to two weeks. You had better see these times comming and take appropreiat action. I can remember one winter that my trees spent two weeks on and under my kitchen table. My trees servived but my wife almost died.

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ripsgreentree

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TreeBay

A recent Newsfeed article has a bit on overwintering juniper:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/home/chi-0111110383nov11.story?coll=chi%2
Dleisurehome%2Dhed

Bonsai Trees & Giant Celery. *What's this world coming to?

:

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GaryS

November 28th.

Due to the relatively warm temps we've had all the bonsai are still in the garage. On days that are above 32ºF I open the doors and get some air circuation in there. They have frozen a couple of times. We have had temps as low as 13ºF already. Trident maple is the most root tender bonsai I have.

It's time to move them into their permanent Winter quarters but the weather forcast for this week is for temps in the 30's during the days and teens at night so I'm leaving them in garage until the following week depending on the forcast.

They will be moved into a 12'x 12' unheated room on tables and shelves, junipers on the floor, under the tables. Tridents and Japanese maples go up high because they are the most tender.

Zelkovas, Ginkgos, Hornbeams, Amelancier, JW Pine, and others occupy the tables that are 3' off the floor.

The shades of the windows are drawn half way open allowing some light but not too much. Evergreens are placed nearer the light.

A minimum/maximum hangs from a shelf, 5' off the floor where the Tridents are.
A space heater will be used when the outside temps fall below around 10ºF.

I have the space heater marked as to where to set it for various temperatures that keep it a pretty constant 28ºF give or take a few degrees.

I don't want it getting close to the root killing temp of 23ºF for Trident maples.

I don't have to water until March. I use snow during the Winter and it melts and evaporates to keep the humidity up to snuff.

I mist during really cold spells because the air gets dry. The mist freezes on the plants. I like it when the humidity is such that you can see your breath when you walk into the room.

The coldest they have seen, with this setup, was -45ºF.
There's mark on the space heater for that -45º and I hope I don't have to use it this Winter. I haven't had to since 1992.

I've been using this setup for going on 21 years with success.

Good luck to everyone getting through this Winter!

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GaryS

GaryS

Here are a few pictures I have of "the room" from a couple years ago.

Attached Images

	overwinter01.jpg (53.8 KB, 66 views)
	overwinter02.jpg (42.3 KB, 64 views)
	overwinter03.jpg (52.7 KB, 68 views)
	overwinter04.jpg (57.5 KB, 65 views)
	overwinter05.jpg (45.4 KB, 58 views)

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GaryS