Winter Protection

John Dixon

Mel,

My climate here near Charlotte is similar, you are probably a little colder. First thing I would have to know is the elm acclimatized to winter weather or has it been greenhouse grown up to now. I say this because chinese elm can behave as a deciduous or evergreen. My experience is that some growers exploit (not an insult) the evergreen properties of elms to speed up there growth into a marketable size.


The problem is, if you buy one of these elms and suddenly expose it to winter OUTSIDE where it has to cope, it can be too much for it to handle. I say this out of experience. I have lost more chinese elms than any other species. At the same time, I have a couple that do just fine with being placed in a cold house type environment (a fully-enclosed King Canopy). Both these elms and the lost elms shared the same space. I did a little research and found that the elms which survived were field grown and never kept in a greenhouse. At the same time, the lost elms, came from greenhouses/warmer climates where the evergreen aspect was prevalent.

I think that is a critical question that has to be answered first. If they are "seasoned" to cold weather, I suggest that you afford them a little more care than you think is required. Before I had the cold frame, I used to "bury" the pot in a bed of pine bark mulch under the benches, and in as much shade as possible. I covered the entire pot and about a inch or so of the trunk. I took care to keep the majority of sunlight off the area so that the bed material would not freeze and thaw constantly. It was not uncommon for the area to have frost on the surface for a week at a time. I kept tridents in the same area (and root burst was always a concern with them) and the elms did fine with the same treatment. Lastly, keeping the wind to a minimum seemed a good idea, although not as important as it was with the conifers and their evergreen foliage.

Hopefully that was at least a little helpful. I highly recommend you find out about the history of the elm(s), if you don't already know.

Good luck,

John

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John Dixon

Si vis pacem parabellum

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