Bonsai Winter Protection

 

Winter

On November 17th I did my winter storage for the trees. It is my tradition since few years. On that date we have holiday celebrating end of the communist rule in our country in 1989. Now we have freedom, even if we still have to fight for it and communist are back in different furs. 

Anyway, I put all my trees down from shelves and cover them with wood chips, sawdust. Cheap and effective. After that I ordered additional winter cover and watering. It arrived tonight. 

Fresh snow

Winter protection

Few days ago it was just about right time to put all trees down from  benches and provide them protection from wind and frost. I used wood sawdust to cover all trees from top. They stay like this outside till March next year. All are local to my climate so they can handle temperatures below -20 C. I think biggest danger for the trees during the winter  is drought. So when they are covered with sawdust they stay moist and even strong winter winds will not dry them out. Whenever we will have some snow I will shovel it over the trees. 

Snow, snow, snow

It started to snow today morning. Its normal in our area in winter time. But watching it from my window I realized I have never ever seen such big snow flakes. Really huge. Our local newspaper writes: "So huge flakes in Slovakia last time fell more than a hundred years ago"  It kept snowing throughout the whole day and it is not stopping in moment when I'm writing it. Great for the bonsai trees tough. Snow will additionally protect them from the frost which should come during next few days, according to weather forecast. Kids will enjoy it. We will have great winter weekend, I guess. Wish you nice weekend also, wherever you are. Thanks.

Winter protection

My little helepers and Cornus mas ready to sleep under leaves. Moji dvaja malý pomocníci a Cornus mas pripravený na zimný spánok.

Few days ago it was just about the right time to end garden bonsai season as usual. This year it was quite late compared to previous years due to quite favourable weather conditions this autumn. Just during last few days temperatures dropped below 0°C. I'm pretty sure trees could comfortably stand on benches few more days. This year I changed my protection method slightly and instead wood chops I used only dry tree leaves. 100% natural bio protection :). In spring I will see how it worked. I will report.

My two little helpers made great job so not much actual work left for myself. When we were finished I did last bonsai garden picture of the year. So we are ready for the snow and winter.

Winter protection

Today I put all my trees on ground and cover them with wood chippings. I used this way of winter protection always and I'm satisfied, all trees during winters survived. I have a lot of help from may kids and it was a lot of fun.

Dnes som zazimoval všetky stromy, zložil som ich na zem a zasypal pilinami. Používam takýto spôsob zimovania stále a nikdy som neprišiel ani o jeden strom počas zimy. Samozrejme som to nerobil sám, ale pomáhali mi moji dvaja pomocníci, bola to zábava.

hráme sa na sneženie/ playing with artificial snow

"prikrývame stromček s perinkou aby mohol cez zimu spinkať"

 

half finished/ z polovice to máme

"This leaves must be removed"/ "Tie listy musia preč, dobre."

and its done/ a je to

Poriadne poliate a pripravené na zimu./ Waterd and prepared for winter.