White pines, a high-elevation pine, require winter dormancy in bonsai greenhouses to survive cold temperatures and ensure continued growth. Without protection from harsh winter conditions, these trees can suffer severe damage or even die. To prepare your bonsai trees for winter, it is essential to expose them to cold weather in fall and wait until the following spring. Bonsai trees require shelter from harsh winter conditions, particularly strong winds and temperature fluctuations.
During the winter months, reduce the frequency of fertilization and allow the tree to rest and prepare for the upcoming season. Ensure that the soil pH level is between 5 and 6.5 and use proper drainage solutions. Proper sunlight exposure with shade is crucial to prevent scorching and ensure 2-4 hours of direct sunlight for most species. Implement wind protection measures, such as sheltered locations or using a cold frame or bringing the tree indoors to an unheated space like a greenhouse.
In tropical countries, white pines are metabolically slow and do not require dormancy. Leave the tree outside for the winter if it naturally grows outside, but be sure the pot will take the cold; clay pots will crack. The most damaging condition for a white pine bonsai is being too wet in the pot, especially during winter when the tree is basically dormant. Place the pine bonsai outside in full sun to help develop the first and second flush of growth and decrease needle size.
While frost-hardy plants should overwinter without problems, tropical trees do not need this dormancy period as they do not need to be overwintered in damp, musty rooms with poor circulation. Place the trees on the ground, not on shelves, benches, or tables.
📹 Winter Protection of Bonsai (What to when it gets cold)
How to protect bonsai in Winter? Can bonsaistay outside in winter? When is winter too cold for bonsai? Winter is upon us, and our …
When to decandle Japanese White Pine bonsai?
To prune Japanese pine bonsai, allow new candles to emerge in Spring through to early Summer, and cut back each candle to an even length across the entire bonsai. Leave some new needles on each candle to prevent branch dieback. For double-flush pine bonsai, allow new candles to emerge in Spring through to early Summer, and completely remove strong and medium-strength candles back to last year’s needles in June to early July. Perform mekiri, or decandling, to produce twice as much branch ramification and shorter needles in one growing season.
Heavy pruning on all native Japanese pine species is best done in late Summer through Fall, from late August through October, to induce back-budding or adventitious buds. For more in-depth pruning techniques, consider joining the online bonsai learning platform Bonsai-U.
How do you take care of a white pine bonsai tree in the winter?
To maintain a tree’s health, it should stay cool or cold during winter, but protected from harsh freezes. In late fall, bury the tree or mulch over the pot in the ground. Protect the tree from strong wind and sun, but not snow or rain. If necessary, place it in an unheated garage or shed. In early spring, return the tree to its normal location. For the rest of the year, keep the tree outside with a few hours of sun, with morning sun and afternoon shade. Water the tree thoroughly, even daily during the growing season.
Do white pines lose their needles in the winter?
White pines experience an alarming annual loss of needles, with yellow needles outnumbering the current season’s green growth. They typically retain their needles for three years, but in autumn, 2- or 3-year-old needles change color and drop, leaving only the current season’s growth attached. Austrian, Scots, red pine, spruce, and fir needles also turn yellow and drop, but the change is less noticeable due to their progressively thinning older needles.
Arborvitae sheds branchlets rather than needles, which usually turn brown as they age. Yew needles turn yellow and drop in late spring or early summer of their third year. Regular check-ups are necessary to diagnose any serious disease or insect problems. Seasonal needle drop is a normal and natural process, and good cultural practices are essential for tree health.
Do indoor bonsai trees lose their leaves in winter?
Indoor bonsai may drop some leaves during winter due to temperature changes, with some plants dropping more than others. The leaves may turn yellow but not crispy, but this is normal. The bonsai will not grow as fast as during summer, so it may take time to see new growth. Outdoor bonsai, if evergreen, will not loose its leaves in winter, allowing for a beautiful canopy all year round. However, deciduous bonsai will drop all its leaves, allowing for a better appreciation of the trunk and branch structure. It’s important to remember that bonsai will need less water during colder months, so don’t worry if you feel you’re not watering your bonsai enough.
Can a pine bonsai be kept indoors?
Evergreen bonsai, such as juniper, pine, and spruce trees, are not suitable for indoor cultivation. They are not suitable for gardens with curved shapes. To buy a bonsai tree, it is recommended to shop at a bonsai specialist nursery, as they typically operate from their websites and appointments. Avoid “mall-sai” trees, which are potted in cheap soil mixes and decorative pebbles, as they may not thrive in indoor environments. There are over 100 specialized bonsai nurseries in the U. S. alone.
Can you keep bonsai in greenhouse?
Growing bonsai trees in a greenhouse offers numerous benefits such as controlled climate and protection from pests. Greenhouses provide a controlled environment, making it easier to care for bonsai trees. This environment protects them from harsh weather conditions, pests, and diseases that can hinder their growth outdoors. Some bonsai trees prefer outdoor environments, while others thrive in indoor settings.
For beginners, it is recommended to start with Ficus, Juniper, or Jade, as these species are relatively sturdy and can adapt well to greenhouse conditions. To learn more about the best conditions for growing bonsai trees, check out articles on indoor and outdoor bonsai trees, and understand the difference between indoor and outdoor bonsai trees.
Can I bonsai a white pine?
White pine bonsai is a high-elevation species that requires dormancy to conserve sugar and starches. They are the driest bonsai species due to their sensitive balance of water and oxygen needs. To ensure proper watering, they should be thoroughly saturated at each watering, but they rely heavily on oxygen and should allow them to dry out between waterings. White pine bonsai thrive in full sun, with shorter and more compact needles as they receive more light.
Should I leave my bonsai outside in winter?
Outdoor bonsai are hardy tree species that can withstand even the lowest temperatures in winter. However, they should not be overwintered outdoors as the frozen soil in the pot can no longer supply water. To avoid this, overwinter the bonsai in an unheated greenhouse or foil tent, or sink them into garden soil sheltered from wind. Avoid wintering indoors or in apartments as they are too warm and dark, leading to weaker bonsai and potential frost-sensitivity. Even the hardest bonsai can become frost-sensitive and freeze to death even at temperatures just below 0°C.
How much sun does a Japanese white pine need?
Pinus parviflora thrives in full sun and well-drained soil, and is tolerant of poor soil as long as drainage is good. It is drought-tolerant and can tolerate salt spray, making it hardy in USDA Zones 4-7. Pinus parviflora is an excellent specimen and suitable for small properties. It is a popular subject for bonsai practitioners. Some interesting cultivars include ‘Goldilocks’, which has blue-green needles frosted with gold and grows slowly to eight feet tall with a similar spread.
Do indoor bonsai trees go dormant?
Bonsai trees, especially those from tropical and subtropical regions, cannot be kept indoors due to their unique needs and the limited storage for nutrients and water. They are planted in small pots, which means they have limited storage for nutrients and water. Tropical trees are accustomed to receiving a lot of light and high humidity, which are challenging to replicate indoors.
The main problem with keeping a tropical Bonsai indoors is the lower light intensity than outdoors. While trees won’t die immediately if they don’t get enough light, growth will decrease and weaken over time. To ensure optimal growth, Bonsai should be placed in a bright location, preferably in front of a south-facing window. Artificial lighting, such as fluorescent lighting with radiating growth-friendly spectra or light-emitting diode lighting, can supplement this deficit of light.
Are greenhouses good for bonsai?
Tropical bonsai can thrive in temperatures as low as 35-40 degrees, but they may drop leaves and stop growing until warmer weather arrives. Providing additional heat and shelter can keep them healthy year-round. To determine bonsai cold hardiness, identify your USDA Plant Hardiness Zone and look up the zone for the trees you are growing. This helps maintain their health and appearance throughout the year.
📹 Overwintering Bonsai
This video talks about how to protect your tree over the colder, winter periods. In the UK we don’t have very harsh winters but the …
Always good to watch again! Here in Boise, the winters are now a bit erratic with more rain than snow as in the past. I use my unheated north facing pool equipment shed that stays between about 22 and 35 over the entire winter for the ones that don’t do well under 20, the sun room in the house for the tropicals, and the rest get grouped up on the ground tucked under the trees in the shade out of the wind. If we get snow, I heap it up on the trees tucked outside so they get slow snow melt over the winter. So far so good the last 5 years. Thanks for all the practical reminders. A great and practical and timeless presentation – as usual. Thanks!
great article, thanks for sharing all those tips, tricks and your experience!. This was a very detailed article that answer mist of my questions. In my case, I’m living in Chicago were temperatures might go below -10C in late winter for some days, even to the point of reaching -20C one or two days at end of February. The good thing is most of my pre-bonsai are locals, collected from my yard or my neighborhood, so I think my only on very very cold days I will take them to the unheated garage for few days. Thanks again 🍻
This is more great information, I recently found your website and your articles covering the winter period have boosted my confidence. We had a pretty early very cold spell recently in the UK. I have a selection of trees in training that I gathered throughout the year and its our first winter. Seeing solid pots I thought it was the end for the tiny ones once we started to hit a week. All I have found is fortified growth since a recent thaw. You mentioned here it isn’t a particular worry until it is dry and frozen for a few weeks without snow cover. We didn’t touch anything like that and being in Manchester it’s always humid so I’m much more confident. However they have remained where they stood since the beginning but I recently noted the sun is too low at the moment to reach them. I did think this was a cause for concern not getting enough light but I am now considering moving them closer to the house to prolong the dormancy. Great content and presentation. I look forward to seeing more. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Thank you Jelle, I did put my special trees in the green house when our temps went below freezing but when it became minus7 for longer I put most of them in there except I discovered I had left out 3 mame! Yet they have survived, I think if it goes below again this winter I will just put them on the ground. So far so good but will only find out in spring what deciduous ones have done. Keep growing.xx
I’m still figuring out the overwintering thing. This winter has been warm so far, the coldest we had at night is -27C. I have all my outdoor trees in my camping trailer this year. So far the snow and ice that was on them has not melted, the pots are still frozen solid. I put them in there November 24th I think. I might bring my spruce in the house. It is the only tree I have had survive winter, and I am terrified to lose it. Today I will go check them and perhaps throw new snow on the top of what is already there. The ground is frozen here, frost goes down 3 to 7 foot, a meter or two, depending on how much snow we have. I never thought to thaw them out to give them water. I thought that would not be good for them. Perhaps I will kick the furnace on in there and thaw them for a day. Great information Jelle. Thank for this! Merry Christmas!
Where was this 2 days ago??? Zone 3-4. Plants getting exposed after being buried in snow all winter. Placed juniper in warmer location … 30-40 degrees. First night it rain a small amount, then went below freezing, then sunrise … burst, the bark right off the plant. In retrospect this such a newbie screw up! Although seemed such a gentle change … in my head. Painful!
I don’t know a lot about taking care of bonsai’s. I just got a small juniper from my grocery store and I was curious on how to take care of it. It’s the middle of winter (19 degrees Fahrenheit) and the tree was kept inside. I know the species is meant to be kept outdoors, but is it okay to just put it outside? It’s a young tree too.
Hi Jelle 🙂 As told in the live-chat right bevore, love your vids – and your style on how to explain in general. I got a small unheated greenhouse180*70*50 on my balcony where i put most of the younger trees in. It tends to fog up (too much moisture) quite alot – would you recommend opening it up during the day even when the temperatures are below freezing?
Going back to a comment I made a few articles ago (about bringing a Japanese maple inside to a ~45-50F attic because I was afraid the roots were too underdeveloped/not hardened off enough to withstand normal frost conditions). I think I forgot to mention that if it did end up breaking dormancy early, I have space for it inside the house where I can tend to it the rest of the winter. I’d actually been trying it out as a houseplant part of last year, and it did surprisingly well despite terrible interior conditions at the time. Fingers are still crossed.
Peter, I know this article is a little older, but I’d like to thank you for all your articles. I look forward to them on a daily basis. As someone new to bonsai, yours was one of the first websites I came upon when researching to get Into it. P!ease continue being bold; I have learned much from you and look forward to learning mor3
I laughed. I live in tropical SE Minnesota, U.S.A.(the warn part of our state) Zone 4b (-30ºF to-40ºF) (-34.4ºC to -40.0ºC) No bonsai not burred in the ground to at least the rim of their pots, mulched, and protected from our strong winter winds would survive our winters, and I’ve been wintering bonsai here for more than 50+ years. I can only grow hardy trees because I don’t have a greenhouse or adequate other winter protection although for a couple of winters I had trees in an unheated shed and when it got down to 10ºF I turned on (by remote) an oscillating tower heater to keep the temperature in the shed from getting lower than the 10ºF which worked well. The best condition is when the ground freezes the soil in bonsai pots stays frozen until spring. The reason being that every time the soil had a freeze/thaw cycle some of the fine hair-roots that feed the tree get broken from the tree. Too many freeze/thaw cycles and the tree could possibly go into shock and greatly stress the tree; if stressed too much could possible die. Outdoors, I bag my trees in spun poly landscape fabric to keep the pots clean and to protect the trees from critters (mice, voles, and rabbits) bury them in the ground to at least the rims of their pots and mulch with cedar bark mulch or straw (the deeper the better) and enclose all the trees in an enclosure (fence) of landscape fabric as added protection and from strong wind. Having the pots in the ground eliminates worry about adequate sol moisture. This method has served me well for decades.
I live in Indiana, near Cincinnati, Ohio. Here in the Midwest we have very cold winters, but occasionally a few days or weeks of very mild temperatures. It’s to my understanding that these fluctuating temps. can be more detrimental to a hardy potted plant/bonsai outdoors in the winter than just how low the temperature gets. The roots often freeze at night and thaw by day, several days at a time. The constant freeze/thaw cycle can damage or completely kill a root system in a outdoor potted plant. I only mention this because I didn’t hear it addressed in the article, which I may have missed due to the audio being so low. Love the website though.
My mother-in-law has a red Japanese maple pushing 25 years old that was planted in her yard and never moved or maintained. The main lead was accidentally bent down when it was young. It’s now only about 4 feet tall but it’s roughly 6 feet in diameter. I’m not sure of the trunk diameter. The canopy resembles an umbrella. Beautiful little tree. What I’m getting at is that this tree is in central Michigan, USA. Our normal winters routinely get below zero degrees Fahrenheit with some getting to -20 degrees Fahrenheit. This little tree has flourished under these harsh conditions for decades. Very hardy tree. I very much wish to bonsai this tree one day.
Peter—this is excellent information even in the USA since you are located in what corresponds to US hardiness zone 7/8. One thing I do is gather my trees together in an area protected by several evergreens and then pile leaves on the pots. This mulch layer helps prevent the freeze thaw cycles which can damage roots and the evergreens prevent drying winds from damaging them.
Ok article but very helpful, doing my first winter so I put all the plants on the grass, put some bubble wrap in the small spaces between the pots, wrapped my maples in some foam padding from old patio furniture, and 1 lean too of glass against the garage with small stuff in there covered in a tarp for the ends, will open during the day. Stacked some old cedar firewood around some of them too hoping for insulation, well I will be better prepared next winter but maybe get it all better by January.
In this article you showed some of your citrus trees. Could we see a article of how to take care of those? Do you also have future plans to article a tree being potted from the ground? There’s a very special tree back home that I would love to pot. Buuuuut I don’t want it to die… Thanks for the articles! They are my new obsession as I learn about bonsai-ing.
Great to see Heron’s doing more articles! Im sure you have loads of ideas/info for articles but more below. You guys have clearly built up a huge business over all these decades. What a great set up, you must have been some of the earliest large scale nurseries in the UK!?! Congratulations on this work! Good to use youtube to get people involved and give your insight. Its a great tool and with professional editing and consistent uploads your subscribers will surely skyrocket! Bonsai is becoming more and more popular in the UK now for sure. You have some amazing trees and have a lot of experience. Some of the info in your articles is not scientifically correct though but the gist and successful technique or process description is always there. An example in this article is the freeze thaw action information. Do you use a winter tree wash? Do you show any trees, win awards or vend at any shows or meetings? Nice to see your tropical species, are there any tropicals from your Indian background that you would or would not recommend? Do you have experience in indoor cultivation and what are the pitfalls? Congratulations on all of these recent uploads. Subbed! 🙂
Ich mag diesen website von Bonsai Heros. Ist immer wieder sehr interessant. Leider verstehe ich kein Englisch. Leider werde ich auch nicht nach Britannien kommen können.. Es sind sehr viele schöne Pflanzen. Ich mag Laubbäume sehr,Kiefern und Wachholder sind nicht meine Favoriten. Bitte Peter machen Sie weiter und zeigen Sie noch mehr articles. Gruß aus Deutschland von Dirk
I live in Northern Norway, at the coast. We don’t have the harshest of winters either (inland is much worse), but it does go down to -15, perhaps -20 at worst, but usually stays around -5/-10. However, we do get snow. Lots of it. I’m thinking that maybe an outdoor tree would be too much work (or worse, impossible), even if I grab a local species found in the woods, so I guess when I get a bonsai (don’t have any yet but desperately wanting) I better make sure it can do well inside…
Hello. Just want to acknowledge that you’ve been a great help to me and I watch your articles regularly. Also I was hoping that you would answer a couple of questions for me. I live in upstate New York and sometimes we experience temperatures as low as -30 to 40° c. Right now our temperature range is hovering between mid-15 and mid-25 degrees Centigrade. I don’t know how to tell if my junipers are in dormancy. I just don’t want to bring them into the cold shelter where there’s very little light for extended period time if I don’t know that they’re dormant. I only have a small LED plant light in my cold room right now. I have a large light for tropicals and other plants that require warm temperatures and sun all year round. I’m having a similar same problem with my desert Rose’s. Both my desert Rose’s have still retained all their leaves despite pretty consistent cold temperatures around 5 to 10 degrees Celsius. all of my indigenous bonsai have dropped all their leaves over a month ago. Do you have any advice?
Hi Mr. Chan. Thank you for your articles. If the night temperature in the winter is not below (-3C), should I cover my bonsai from freezing? The day temperature is (+8) (+10C) the same period. For example, my ficuses Benjamin and Melania are growing outside, but the pots are enough big to protect the roots. When the night temperature goes below 0C, I usually use the fleece to cover them.
I live in northern Canada where it gets to -40 c and stays for weeks, what should I do with my trees? I’ve been bringing them in but they start to bud out after about 2 weeks inside. I dont have a cold storage room or a greenhouse. I live in an apartment so cant build anything. I keep them on my deck most of the year except for the extreme cold season. Once they bud I leave inside for fear of killing them.
Hi Peter, im Jason I could really use your advice. I live in the North west of England, in an 2nd floor apartment. I currently have a small Japanese holly bonsai (roughly 20 cm tall) I’d like to know if it will be okay on the balcony all winter, im thinking it should be okay because im quite high off the ground. Please let me know, thanks.
Living in the Chicago area, I had some serious dieback of potted Japanese maples a few years ago when it got down to -22 F (-30 Celsius) for a few days. I put them in an unheated detached garage where it stays a little warmer than outside, and most winters they do fine there, but if it gets that cold again is it safe to bring them in the warm house for a few days?
But how about watering? 😕 I know the soil should not be too wet in the winter, but how do i keep the soil at the lower level in the pot moist if i cant give it to much water? If the pot dries out and i only sprinkle it with a bit of water, only the upper part of the soil will suck up the water, but then the soil at the bottom will dry out. 😕