Zone 7 Cold Snap. Leaves out! HELP

[pstaboche]

So this is my first proper Spring working on bonsai and many of my trees have woken up. I live in Maryland Zone 7 for context and have brought all my trees into the open. Many of them have woken up and now we are expecting lows ranging from 21°F to 30°F for three days....

I have a privet that has fully leafed out, and a host of other trees whose leaves are almost completely unfurled. Any advice on what to do to protect them from cold? As a newbie, I may have been overzealous with the amount of work I did last year and now I'm concerned with whether they're strong enough to handle this.

I was thinking of placing everything in my garage for a few days until temps get above freezing. My garage is unheated/has no light coming in but is connected to the house and rarely freezes completely. Another thought I had was to stack bags of mulch against the side of my house and covering that with blankets to make a quick/dirty cold frame.

Is there a better way to handle a three day cold snap? For reference, below is a the list of species I'm concerned for. I'm more worried about the deciduous, but I included my evergreens in case someone knows something particular to them that I don't. Thanks.

My Outside Trees:

Deciduous:
Various Japanese Maples
Trident Maple
Privet
Japanese Barberry
Cherry Blossom (unknown Var.)
Buttonbush

Evergreen:
Various Junipers
Hinoki cypress "little Jamie"
Japanese Black Pine
Satsuki Azalea
Boxwoods
Japanese Holly
Winter Jasmine

 

[PA_Penjing]

We call it the bonsai 2 step. Put everything in the garage to protect it from freezing temps and get it back out as soon as you can. It's a big reason my collection is small and non of my trees are huge. Here in PA we do it all April

 

[0soyoung]

Noob already working at the state-of-the-art level!

 

[Bnana]

If it's just below freezing I wouldn't bother with things like Japanese maple, privet, hinoki etc. I don't know all the species you have but most of not all trees you mention can handle frost. If it's really 21 or lower and they are growing I might cover the most sensitive trees with a sheet of plastic but that's it.

 

[BrightsideB]

If it's just below freezing I wouldn't bother with things like Japanese maple, privet, hinoki etc. I don't know all the species you have but most of not all trees you mention can handle frost. If it's really 21 or lower and they are growing I might cover the most sensitive trees with a sheet of plastic but that's it.

My Japanese maples are the ones in my collection that suffer the most from a frost after breaking dormancy. Except for the standard green acer palmatum. They seem to handle frost a little better. But the cultivars almost always suffer.

 

[Colorado]

Garage

 

[rockm]

So this is my first proper Spring working on bonsai and many of my trees have woken up. I live in Maryland Zone 7 for context and have brought all my trees into the open. Many of them have woken up and now we are expecting lows ranging from 21°F to 30°F for three days....

I have a privet that has fully leafed out, and a host of other trees whose leaves are almost completely unfurled. Any advice on what to do to protect them from cold? As a newbie, I may have been overzealous with the amount of work I did last year and now I'm concerned with whether they're strong enough to handle this.

I was thinking of placing everything in my garage for a few days until temps get above freezing. My garage is unheated/has no light coming in but is connected to the house and rarely freezes completely. Another thought I had was to stack bags of mulch against the side of my house and covering that with blankets to make a quick/dirty cold frame.

Is there a better way to handle a three day cold snap? For reference, below is a the list of species I'm concerned for. I'm more worried about the deciduous, but I included my evergreens in case someone knows something particular to them that I don't. Thanks.

My Outside Trees:

Deciduous:
Various Japanese Maples
Trident Maple
Privet
Japanese Barberry
Cherry Blossom (unknown Var.)
Buttonbush

Evergreen:
Various Junipers
Hinoki cypress "little Jamie"
Japanese Black Pine
Satsuki Azalea
Boxwoods
Japanese Holly
Winter Jasmine

I'm Planning on lugging all my deciduous trees in leaf (and in one instance not in leaf yet) inside Sunday afternoon to Wed. afternoon (or possibly Thursday morning, as Wed.night low is supposed to be 34 F here).

This is a must if I dont' want dead trees. The duration of this late freeze is long and temps low enough that all the soil in even the biggest pots will freeze through.

Once deciduous trees push new leaves in the spring, their roots lose the vast majority of their ability to withstand below freezing temperatures. You'll say the trees in the woods have new leaves. Yeah, but they are also in the ground, their roots protected by vast volumes of soil that is now well above freezing a foot down. The cold snap won't last long enough to freeze the ground soil, so the in-ground trees will only have their new leaves nipped...

Get your Japanese holly, satsuki and winter jasmine inside as well. THey are not evergreen like pines. They are "broadleafed evergreens" and they do lose leaves as more "conventional deciduous trees, just not all at once in the fall.

The junipers and other conifers should be OK outside. You can place the on the ground and cover them WITH SOMETHING POROUS--DO NOT USE PLASTIC SHEETING. Burlap or old cotton bed sheets will work fine. Plastic traps moisture which will freeze on the undersurface next to the trees, which will in turn freeze to foliage damaging it.

 

[rockm]

If it's just below freezing I wouldn't bother with things like Japanese maple, privet, hinoki etc. I don't know all the species you have but most of not all trees you mention can handle frost. If it's really 21 or lower and they are growing I might cover the most sensitive trees with a sheet of plastic but that's it.

Extremely dangerous advice that will kill trees. Sorry, but it will. The forecast here is for several days of nighttime temps between 23 and 29degrees with day time highs in the 40s and 50s. That duration and depth of cold at night will freeze soil in pots through. Newly leafed deciduous trees can be killed outright or have significant portions die off. Not worth the risk. Plastic sheeting is the worst thing you can use to cover plants in freezes. It traps water underneath and cause freeze damage on leaves and twigs. Burlap and old cotton bed sheets are vastly superior to plastic if you're shielding against frost.

Why Not Cover Plants with Plastic for a Frost?

Unexpected frosts can leave gardeners scrambling for anything to cover their...

homeguides.sfgate.com

 

[Bnana]

If it freezes a bit at night and it's well above freezing during the day I leave everything out. Never had an issue. What might play a role is that most of are on the ground, not on a pedestal/table. After a night with 6C/21 F the top layer might freeze but under that it's fine. Pots don't freeze that quickly.
You shouldn't put plastic on the trees but above them as it traps the warmth from the ground.

 

[WNC Bonsai]

I do the two step the easy way. Out in the morning and back in at night. Works since I mainly use the truck for dump runs.

 

[BeepBeepBonsaiSheep]

I do the two step the easy way. Out in the morning and back in at night. Works since I mainly use the truck for dump runs.

View attachment 426727

That’s actually a smart idea!

 

[Scorpius]

I need a greenhouse with a retractable roof. 18-23 predicted lows through Tuesday morning.

 

[Shogun610]

Flatbed truck would be easier … I kinda liked hauling the big wagon, so handy…goal is a greenhouse one day

 

[Mikecheck123]

I'm on vacation. Worst forecast as of Wednesday when I left was 32 so I did nothing.

Worst forecast as of now: 24, then 21.

I'm so fked and there's nothing I can do about it!

 

[pstaboche]

I'm on vacation. Worst forecast as of Wednesday when I left was 32 so I did nothing.

Worst forecast as of now: 24, then 21.

I'm so fked and there's nothing I can do about it!

Call someone! Quick!

 

[sorce]

have brought all my trees into the open.

I'd like to understand the context of this move.

Not doing this is the prevention you need to focus on for next and every following year.

You are right to consider last year's work, but you're more likely to see branches die through winter as an effect of last year's work.

This move, which is a giant "confusion" regardless of actual context, has much more to do with them opening off time than last year's work.

Any place we ever speak of wintering a tree in, regardless of any opinions on it's value, is ALWAYS a place where, if moved from, we will drastically change the lighting scenario the tree sees.

This seeing of more light, is an artificial "longer day" to a tree that would regularly not move from where it is rooted.
Combined with the warmth of the sun on the pot and we've artificially made the tree believe both things it's reading have advanced further than they actually have, temp and time.

Great Confusion.

Plus if they were on the ground and connected to the mych network, we also removed any distant communication they may have been receiving from taller trees.

It's always better to Prevent, or you'll be wearing out dancing shoes, the $ which you may have been able to spend on a better collection.

Since limiting fall work, and leaving things on the ground until everything has bloomed out, and not repotting in spring, essentially removing every confusion, I haven't lost anything.
Not even in 2019.


More importantly, No Design Loss.

No Headache.
No Death.
No Design Loss.

Don't let folks coax you into sharing their misery of the "dance".

This is a silly and harmful concept.

Very Human, Very Selfish.

Sorce

 

[pstaboche]

Noob already working at the state-of-the-art level!

Thank you!

 

[rockm]

If it freezes a bit at night and it's well above freezing during the day I leave everything out. Never had an issue. What might play a role is that most of are on the ground, not on a pedestal/table. After a night with 6C/21 F the top layer might freeze but under that it's fine. Pots don't freeze that quickly.
You shouldn't put plastic on the trees but above them as it traps the warmth from the ground.

Then you have gotten lucky. This stuff can be highly species and even cultivar dependent. I've lost trees to late freezes that hadn't moved into leaf, only had buds swelling. Cold froze the cambium and killed this bald cypress (which had a promising future) down to the root crown/mulch line...made it useless. I've had similar damage on other deciduous trees over the past few years. The weather pattern has changed in the last few years. We get heat (it's been 85 here) and then are plunged into deep cold (coldest day forecast has a low in the high teens/low 20's) for several days. It's happened the last five or so years, according to my records and the Weather Service's--This past March was the warmest on record-now we're due for record cold at the end of it.

We're slated to be 31 tonight, 21 tomorrow, 24 Tuesday and 30 on Wed. nights. Highs won't make it out of the high 40s-low 50s in the daytime. That deep, prolonged freezing cold is dangerous, as soil in pots WILL freeze all the way through, even the largest ones (I have pots that hold 20 gallons of soil) and ESPECIALLY the smaller ones, like mame, shohin and nursery pots left unprotected on the ground.

I don't know how long you've been at this, but probably not longer than a decade. I will not risk 30 years of work on my trees because I'm too lazy or convinced with shaky anecdotal evidence to bring my trees in when spring cold comes up.

RIP:

 

[crookedwoodbonsai]

I've got almost everything field growing in the ground, not much I can do other than throw some bedsheets over them!

 

[Bnana]

We weren't taking about bald cypress, that thing is nearly subtropical. Of course that's a different situation.
I've got quite a bit of experience with pot grown plants, less with bonsai. Where I live it's much less of an issue apparently. What might be a substantial difference is the temperature profile. Here the minimum temperature is reached before sunrise but this time of year that doesn't last long. So even if the minimum is 25 F/ -4 C it doesn't do much to the pots as most of the night is above freezing.
Higher temperatures and sun warm it up quickly after sunrise.
Your weather pattern is clearly different.