Winter Thoughts

FredL

We are in mid Autumn here in the Ozarks, with frosty monings not far off. Very soon, I will be forced to firm up my plans for Winter. Last Winter was my second here and far more succesful as far as getting all my trees through alive and undamaged. It seemed that the key was avoiding potting of conifers in the Fall. The native deciduous trees are really pretty good at surviving even if potted or repotted in the Fall, but conifers seem much more vulnerable to Winter damage to their roots if potted in the Fall. Also, deciduous species from Walmart. Other than that, over-Wintering was simplicity itself: Just find an area that was more or less sheltered and within reach of my garden hose for occasional watering, build a kind of wall around it with firewood and move the trees into it. I also covered the trees to the top of their pots with fallen leaves. Come Spring, I moved them back to the patio area and, magically, with warming weather, every single tree, large and small, sprang back to life.

Last Winter I created a number of grow boxes from lumber and from plastic storage boxes and wash basins. Both wooden and plastic grow boxes worked fine last Spring and Summer. I used to use mostly clay flower pots and plastic nursery containers for my seedlings and pre-bonsai trees, but grow boxes are much better. They are more shallow and that is better in its effect on root system development. Also, it seems to increase the amount of air the roots get and that spurs development of the roots and the trees generally. I will make additional grow boxes over this Winter.

Spring is 6 months away, but I already find myself anticipating it with excitement. I have now collected PLENTY of material. I counted 136 pots and grow boxes with one or more trees in each, plus more trees in my grow beds yesterday. I plan on little or no additional collecting next Spring, but lots of repotting and the beginning of serious styling on several trees. I am not sure whether I will have trees going into bonsai pots next Spring or am still a year away from that but I think I have at least 3 or 4 trees that I am ready to create genuine Bonsai from in the Spring. Styling rather than collecting and horticultural techniques will be my focus in the Spring. Big step! While I'm not totally clueless in this area, I do have alot to learn and I suspect I'm probably 2 or 3 years away from being reasonably effective at it. I"m expecting it to be a new and exciting adventure in life for me.

Best regards, Fred

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TreeBay

Fred, you need a bonsaiTALK Journal

http://forum.bonsaitalk.com/showthr...=&threadid=4271

Regards,

Matt

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FredL

Hey, pretty cool, Matt! Fred