Purchasing A Greenhouse Kept Maple...help For The Cold?

W3rdSmyth

Lately I've been volunteering on weekends at a local garden center with about 2,500 bonsai trees spread among 3 connected greenhouses. They are very overgrown, and in need of a lot of TLC so the owners and I worked out something for me to get a nice discount on any purchases I make at the garden center in exchange for helping them get things straightened out in there. I am absolutely LOVING it.

Now, during my adventures in the greenhouses the last few weeks I have fallen in love with a maple. I've never kept a maple before, and I live in Ohio where there are plenty of maples growing outdoors. Now, this maple is a nice size and has nebari that keeps me up at night fantasizing about it (yeah I know, I'm a little twisted but hey the bonsai bug has bitten me hard). I have decided to purchase this maple as soon as I can scrape together the rest of the money for it.

The maple has been greenhouse kept for about the last 10 years or so, but the greenhouse it is in is regularly closed off from the rest of the greenhouses each fall so the temperature in there can be dropped to about 50 degrees during the winter. I haven't been around the maple I love long enough to see if it drops its leaves at that temperature. My question is, on a tree that has been kept in this manner for so many years....what the heck do I do once I purchase it and take it home? I have a cold frame I use for my Spruce, cypress, and junipers, as well as my zelkova...but these trees have always been used to the outdoors. How do I introduce the new maple to the great outdoors for fall and winter? I'm sure the greenhouse would have no problem letting me winter it there this year after I purchase it, but I'd rather bring it home.

Please excuse the long post, but out of all my trees this maple would be my pride and joy. It needs a lot of work, needs repotted badly, needs cleaned out...so it's far from completely presentable but my gosh...as a beginner I've never been so excited about the purchase of a tree in my first two and a half years as a beginner.

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Camay123

I must say that you are blessed to have this oppurtinity. You can take almost all the time you want to examine and select your future purchase. Out of decidious tree, maple are my favorite kind.

Now , dont have the answer to your post, on how to transfer your tree from greenhouse to exterior. As far as I know, maple need temps around 40 degree F, in order to get in dormancy. If it was my tree, I would check the temperature at the green house this winter. When temperature in the exterior get the same, bring the tree outside, protected from the wind, gradually exposing the tree to exterior condition. The tree will wake up outside, in the shade, and will have no problem surviving. This would be my procedure. May I be corrected by a more experience member, thats possible.

Dont excuse yourself about a long post. I can feel the joy in your post

Thomas_J.

I'm assuming you have the maple in your possesion now correct?
If that's the case the tree is already outside doing its living right?
So you are already starting the process of coming out of the greenhouse. By fall as the temps start to go down the tree will be pretty much acclimated to your weather there. Many deciduous bonsai trees can't take extreme cold no matter where you live unless you do something to help them out. Many people mulch them in the ground to keep the roots somewhat warm, and put plastic up so as to keep the harsh winds from drying them up, but the best you can do is to put them in an unheated garage. Since the winters in Ohio can be be pretty mean at times you may want to mulch them in a little even in the garage in a small area. Since your only worried about this one tree, it shouldn't be too hard to do. You shouldn't have any problem at all if you can put it in a garage for the winter.

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Thomas J.

W3rdSmyth

I'll own it in about a week, so it's still currently living indoors.

I don't have a garage to work with, but I am planning to build an upgraded version of the cold frame I used last year to keep my outdoor trees in. I dug six inches into the ground, and put the trees in and covered the pots and bottoms of the trees with mulch inside the cold frame which protected everything from the wind.

It is my understanding that some people put their trees inside of a shed or garage, and that absolutely no light at all isn't a problem because the trees are dormant. Is that correct? There is a nice big outdoor shed at my sister's house just 15 minutes away but it has no window so the tree would be in darkness all winter if I put it inside there.

Camay123

Darkness is ok. The tree as no leaves, so light cant be benefic.

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Adam_MA

Only 6 inches deep with the cold frame? I think in zone 5 you would want to go much deeper than that. Last fall I dug a cold frame under my deck. It butted against 2 of my foundation walls so it got some heat from that but I still went down about 36" then filled in with 4" of gravel for drainage. I think for a cold frame to be most effective you should go down to the frost line. I would at very least go down to 24" and then add a couple inches of gravel. Also once you get snow and the temp is staying around freezing you can fill your cold frame with the snow all the way up to (and possibly around) the branches of the tree. This will keep the temp more even and prevent the freeze/thaw cycle that does damage.

More importantly than anything though you need to find out exactly what species and variety of maple this tree is and make sure it is hardy to your zone.

I hope this helps a bit

Adam

W3rdSmyth

Adam, thanks, that does confirm something for me about a setup I was thinking about last night. See, I live in an apartment building on the ground floor with a giant brick patio and some nice large flower beds. I have balcony decks 10 feet above my patio, and 6 foot tall picket all the way around my patio so I'm well sheltered/shaded. Pretty much perfect for my trees.

Now, I'm on the ground floor and we have a large laundry room in the basement, and the basement has some of those small windows up near the ceiling as many basements do. Well, on the outside, there is a two foot deep pit with a curved metal wall around it in the ground where the window is to allow in light. One of those is actually on my patio, and it's against the back of my apartment, underneath the upstairs deck so it's nice and shady. My plan I thought of last night was to put gravel and mulch down in that hole and put the maple down inside of that. It would be completely protected from sun and wind and would be in a pit with a window (boarded up on the inside by the way so no one could see my tree). I would build a lean-to frame with opaque plastic to cover over the top of the hole and protect the tree further from being disturbed. When it snows I can throw snow in there, no problem.

I think this sounds like my best and most reasonable plan. I really need to put up some pictures of my situation to make it more apparent how I'm set up, but I think I can take advantage of that hole area outisde the basement window.

Adam_MA

Yes.. I think that "Window Well" would make for a fine makeshift cold frame. The lean-to idea will work, but may be unnecessary. If the tree fits completely in the window well then you could just simply cover it with a piece of plywood and put a couple of rocks or such on the top to hold it into place.

The pictures are a great idea, please post them.

Adam

rockm

I'd check with the management of the building before blocking off a window with a tree and plywood. You could wind up with no tree, if building management takes exception and cleans out the window well and pitches the tree, if they're in charge of the outside maintenance of the building.

You might also run into some building safety code issues filling the well with gravel and such, too...