Overwinter in north central Kansas?

NoTopSkies

Yamadori
Messages
53
Reaction score
11
Location
North Central KS
So I have moved my trees from the repurposed bench. I did a light tilling of the ground underneath and then buried the pots with their drip pans and gravel. I was just in a hurry. We have already had three good frosts and two freezes. Our temperatures vary so wildly I am not sure how to approach this. It should be obvious I have jumped in with both feet. Now I face the test of winter. For a newbie I could sure use some constructive ideas on keeping my plants through winter? (The scorching Summer was challenge enough).
 

Attachments

  • 9745BFF5-5675-4625-8D85-F0365AFBB14A.jpeg
    9745BFF5-5675-4625-8D85-F0365AFBB14A.jpeg
    201.5 KB · Views: 69
  • 5EAA097F-6F38-476D-A7E0-B9765EDD7FC5.jpeg
    5EAA097F-6F38-476D-A7E0-B9765EDD7FC5.jpeg
    266.7 KB · Views: 78

NoTopSkies

Yamadori
Messages
53
Reaction score
11
Location
North Central KS
I forgot to mention, this is the East side of the house. It is the best wind break part of the yard since our winds can be extreme ffrom southerly or northerly.
 

hemmy

Omono
Messages
1,390
Reaction score
1,717
Location
NE KS (formerly SoCal 10a)
USDA Zone
6a
did a light tilling of the ground underneath and then buried the pots with their drip pans and gravel.
I’d remove the drip pans. Bury them back on gravel insulated with the wood chips.

I had one winter with bonsai in NE KS. I overwintered some Trident maples in shallow containers. I had an east side of a slab house with alot of shade. I dug down 2ft next to the foundation and put some gravel and cement blocks and covered it all with plastic. Then I put a 100watt incandescent bulb in a heat lamp with a remote thermometer. I’d open it pretty much every day over 40F to keep it cool and the bulb only ran on the coldest nights. Being deeper and next to the foundation was the best thing to regulate temp. Of course the bulb might be good for conifers. If I did it again, I would bury heat cables. But thankfully we moved to SoCal and that was my last winter! Good luck!
 

NoTopSkies

Yamadori
Messages
53
Reaction score
11
Location
North Central KS
Thanks for the response. I just figured that with the gravel stil in the drip pans the excess water would slowly wick out into the soil. I was also in a hurry and was doubting myself the entire time. Since we go up and down temp-wise a lot right now I can still dig them back up. I just went back to town and picked up a 4X8 heavy fence panel from TSC for $15 to keep our half lab//half Pyrenees rescue puppy out. It will be a pain in the rear to move the pine shaving bales and fence panel very often so I need to get this figured out before the real cold hits.
 

NoTopSkies

Yamadori
Messages
53
Reaction score
11
Location
North Central KS
I also failed to explain that six of them are in bonsai pots, some are in regular clay pots and some in plastic nursery pots. Nothing like having as many variables as possible to keep it challenging!
 

Leo in N E Illinois

The Professor
Messages
11,337
Reaction score
23,253
Location
on the IL-WI border, a mile from ''da Lake''
USDA Zone
5b
Your set up looks pretty good. I would not re-do what you have done. It should work.

Key is your choice of species. If all your trees, as landscape trees are hardy to your area, or hardy further north, you should have no trouble. Trees that are hardy to maybe one zone warmer (south) will ''probably'' be okay. No need to add heat.

If you are trying to winter trees hardy only to 2 zones warmer, you will need to figure out how to add heat.

So - what you got?

Native elm species, collected locally, would need just to be set out of the wind. Other fully hardy trees, would be just about any locally collected tree. Amur maples are exceptionally hardy. Most spruce, Ponderosa pine, jack pine or lodgepole pine, Limber pine (flexilis), Malus, Amelanchier, and many others would all do well without added heat. Just set out of the wind.

Shape of a clay pot is key to whether a pot survives freeze thaw cycles. Water expands as it freezes, so moist soil will expand as it freezes. Pots need to have walls slope outwards, so the soil mass can lift up as it freezes. Pots with perfectly vertical walls are very likely to break. Bag style pots where the rim of the pot even comes back inward are particularly prone to being shattered by expanding soil.

High temperature fired pots, cone 8 to cone 10 fired pots are more resistant to spalling, or sheets of clay breaking off due to moisture expanding in the micro channels (water filled pores) inside the clay.. A cone 10 pot, that is fully vitreous will still break if the shape of the pot does not allow for the soil mass to expand.

A very coarse potting media, with good air voids, will also allow expanding water freezing into ice to back up into the air voids. Pots with trees that are in a mostly pumice mix, with lots of air spaces, will survive regardless of shape, where a dense soil with fine particles. will expand and break even a high temperature vitreous pot.

So plastic is best for winter pot survival. A coarse media, and paying attention to pot shape are key for survival of clay bonsai pots.
 

sorce

Nonsense Rascal
Messages
32,908
Reaction score
45,579
Location
Berwyn, Il
USDA Zone
6.2
Now I face the test of winter

Remember, it isn't you facing the test of Winter, it is the trees, and they have been doing it forever!

No worries.

Human worry causes most of the problems we face. Ignore your worry.

Sorce
 

NoTopSkies

Yamadori
Messages
53
Reaction score
11
Location
North Central KS
Well I ‘m not looking forward to losing my unglazed rectangular pots, for sure. I think I will wrap the bottom of the trellis with a plastic, drop cloth I have after a project. I can staple it to the trellis inside of the pine shaving bales. I’m not sure how to attach it to the fence panel but I will figure it out. I can place a sheet on top of the plants as well. The pine shaving bales were because they are about hey same as a bale of straw around here but much easier to locate. TSC.
 

NoTopSkies

Yamadori
Messages
53
Reaction score
11
Location
North Central KS
Now - to my biggest question. I sprung for a little shallow pot, forest maple online. It comes well packed. It was attractive in the online pictures and just beautiful to me when I unpacked it. It has done OK for about a week, with three days of watering twice a day. Today it got burnt by the wind. I just don’t know what to even start doing with this for the winter?? Bur8A22A43B-6B6D-462A-8991-D3BFF8C610E7.jpegy it in the shallow pot along with the rest of my trees?
 

Forsoothe!

Imperial Masterpiece
Messages
6,878
Reaction score
9,248
Location
Michigan
USDA Zone
6b
I spent a year in Kansas once. At Fort Reilly, October thru December. The winds were so strong you could lean into it, relax, and not fall down. We could see the Northern Lights at night. It was like Alaska, but without all fun.
 

NoTopSkies

Yamadori
Messages
53
Reaction score
11
Location
North Central KS
From Olive Branch Mississippi to northern Kansas is a big change this time of year. For the trident planting. Do you have any place that stays above freezing, but fairly cool?
Yes - I thought the same. I just put it in with the rest of them and have been daily barricading the wind with pine shavings bales from SC and draped an old fleece blanket over them at night. My only other option so far is indoors. My shop stays from 51-41 at nights but it is very dry in there.
 

NoTopSkies

Yamadori
Messages
53
Reaction score
11
Location
North Central KS
I spent a year in Kansas once. At Fort Reilly, October thru December. The winds were so strong you could lean into it, relax, and not fall down. We could see the Northern Lights at night. It was like Alaska, but without all fun.
I have actually done that on hilltops.
 

NoTopSkies

Yamadori
Messages
53
Reaction score
11
Location
North Central KS
I have actually done the lean thing on hilltops.
Oh, and 20 years of night vision goggles allowed us to see “green” northern lights often. I only remember seeing them unaided twice from the Salina area since I moved here in the 70’s. My biology teacher/swim coach third job was as a crew chief on helicopters.
 

James W.

Chumono
Messages
730
Reaction score
846
Location
Augusta, KS
USDA Zone
6b
Do you have pictures of this?



It sounds like something that doesn't exist.

Sorce
I assure you, it does exist. A couple of days approaching 100 degrees with winds approaching 20mph and all your maple leaves have brown crinkly edges. Even under 40% shade cloth.
 

sorce

Nonsense Rascal
Messages
32,908
Reaction score
45,579
Location
Berwyn, Il
USDA Zone
6.2
I assure you, it does exist. A couple of days approaching 100 degrees with winds approaching 20mph and all your maple leaves have brown crinkly edges. Even under 40% shade cloth.

I feel like it is an issue of not enough water.

The link between the seemed cause and effect being the roots, as usual.

Sorce
 

James W.

Chumono
Messages
730
Reaction score
846
Location
Augusta, KS
USDA Zone
6b
I feel like it is an issue of not enough water.

The link between the seemed cause and effect being the roots, as usual.

Sorce
It is all about water - at the leaves. I tried to keep a Japanese maple sitting in a shallow pan of water and it looked just as bad as the one right beside it. Maybe both had too much water, I don't know. Maybe just too, too hot. That was the summer we had 50+ days over 100. Even Japanese maples in the ground get to looking a little crispy. Sometime I would like to set up a misting system to see if that would help.

Sorry for the hijack. Back to our regular programming . . ..
 
Top Bottom