No one freak out by the brutal cold that will be here in a few days

I worry about lots of stuff, why leave Bonsai out of the worry circle. I have everything on the north side of the house, mulched/snowed in, & out of the wind. I have a BC that I fancy & worry about its roots, despite it being zone four hardy. I've been considering prying it out of the mulch & crowbarring it off the tundra, and bringing it into the garage. After thinking about it I'm just going to leave outside.

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Weather related casualties have been relatively high for me the past year or so. A month straight of 100F+ days over summer, and not a night above freezing since October, they've been through a bit more than I was able to shift priorities for. Right now my outdoor collection is getting rather small, and already looking to be smaller come spring.
Hoping the snow comes well before the temps. Looking at our first dip into negatives coming up.
Also, anyone else notice that MLK Day is always just super s🤬ty weather? Not just cold, but always bitter cold and cloudy and crap no one wants falling from the sky.
It's like the universe is pissed about something.
 
I have noticed that mulch plus snow has tempered cold frame temps fairly well so far. Have seen a low of about 7-9 outside and cold frame temps fairly sensor said about 31F. Next week drops to 5 or less and stays that way day and night so will be interesting to see how sensors say cold frame temperatures are. Only my second winter and last year was easy compared to this year with regards to low temperatures. Hopefully all trees are ok come spring.
 
Hence my post.
Two years ago I lost a lot of trees due to a sudden cold snap that happened right at Christmas 2022. We hit 6F here on Christmas Eve - which is unheard of for a part of the country where the average low in January is 31F, and the high many winter days is above 50F. It was my third winter here in NC and I got complacent - partly because I saw on the forecast that it was going to be followed almost immediately by unseasonably warm weather (we hit 61F on December 30). I lost 41 trees. Many were small trees in development, but I lost a number of larger trees that I considered bulletproof - including a large Eastern Winged Elm and a Yaupon Holly that are both native to this area. I did nothing to prepare for the cold other than move my Mediterranean species indoors for a night. I should have done a lot of things - which might in sum total taken a couple of hours at most. So it is "bonsai in haste, repent at leisure" for me - I spent the last two years regretting all the things that I might have done. The last two years I have shown an abundance of caution, and have not lost a tree to the cold :)

I should probably add that I don't as a rule worry about conifers. I have never (knock on wood) lost a conifer to the cold.
 
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Two years ago I lost a lot of trees due to a sudden cold snap that happened right at Christmas 2022. We hit 6F here on Christmas Eve - which is unheard of. It was my third winter here in NC and I got complacent - partly because I saw on the forecast that it was going to be followed almost immediately by seasonally warm weather (we hit 61F on December 30). I lost 41 trees. Many were small trees in development, but I lost a number of larger trees that I considered bulletproof - including a large Eastern Winged Elm that is native to this area. I did nothing to prepare for the cold other than move my Mediterranean species indoors for a night. I should have done a lot of things - which might in sum total taken a couple of hours at most. So it is "bonsai in haste, repent at leisure" for me - I spent the last two years regretting all the things that I might have done. The last two years I have shown and abundance of caution, and have not lost a tree to the cold :)

I should probably add that I don't as a rule worry about conifers. I have never (knock on wood) lost a conifer to the cold.

Noted. It was 8°F here that year. My trees were on the ground, protected from the wind by a privacy fence. I left them where they were. Everything was fine the following spring. Maybe I was just lucky?
 
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C'est la guerre — I did all I can. I've never actually been in negative F weather. Should be fun.
 
What part of town are you in @namnhi? I'm next to Spring and coldest it predicted to get is next Tuesday night at 28 with possible snow! And monday night at 30. This is pretty much exactly the same as the cold that just passed.
Am in Katy area. Pretty close to I10 and Grand PKWY. I have seen some saying we will get down to 24. Last year I did an experiment when we had the cold snap that got down to around 22. Most trees survived so this year I will only bring in the ones I really don't want to die. Most of mine are in pot and fairly small so they can come in if I still have room.
 
I have noticed that mulch plus snow has tempered cold frame temps fairly well so far. Have seen a low of about 7-9 outside and cold frame temps fairly sensor said about 31F. Next week drops to 5 or less and stays that way day and night so will be interesting to see how sensors say cold frame temperatures are. Only my second winter and last year was easy compared to this year with regards to low temperatures. Hopefully all trees are ok come spring.

This.

Mulch and snow at the very least. Was going to build a cold frame this fall, but didn't get around to it due to a broken leg.

I was getting skeptical of the local forecast on my weather apps and added a couple sensors - I'm running about 5F colder.

Current example - my sensor says 8F right now, weather services say 13F.

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"Bonsai temperature" is a probe in the substrate of a mulched in Japanese maple. Staying right at 32F so far.

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I’m playing it super safe and 80% if everything is in garage for next 5 days .. next year I’m making a cold frame but I don’t wanna risk my slab plantings .. yes the natives can take the cold better but the exposed / shallow roots in pots and slabs exposes the roots to damage
 
I just had a crazy idea. We know that completely burying a tree in snow will protect it both from wind and from cold. Has anyone tried using a snow machine to protect trees? Apparently, you can get cheap ones that would probably have no problem covering a cluster of bonsai trees.

 
I just had a crazy idea. We know that completely burying a tree in snow will protect it both from wind and from cold. Has anyone tried using a snow machine to protect trees? Apparently, you can get cheap ones that would probably have no problem covering a cluster of bonsai trees.

Cheap for a lawyer lol
 
Mine have all been in the unheated garage, staying between mid 20's and upper 30's. There's a window nearby where I keep them, so I use that to adjust the temps when needed. It'll be closed starting Friday evening, as our highs will be in the teens and single digits. Overnight lows will be below zero Saturday-Tuesday. Today and tomorrow we're in the low-mid 40's, which is crazy for January. A nice handshake before a punch in the mouth by mother nature.
 
Maybe I was just lucky?
In my case, if I had to point to the one thing that contributed the most to my mass die-off, it was that I failed to water prior to the cold. I don't as a rule track my watering schedule, but if I had to guess, the trees had gone a week without water prior to the cold front. Then the temps dropped, humidity dropped, and I was distracted with Christmas celebrations and did not notice until several days later. The holly I lost, which is an evergreen, showed all the signs of having simply dried out. It looked fine for a week after the cold, but the foliage slowly browned and the tree never showed signs of recovery. Like I said, I got complacent. In SoCal I had an automatic watering system, so watering was something that I did not typically worry about. At the time this happened, I was living in a rental house while we were constructing our new house - so I did not have the ability to do much of anything to protect the trees from wind or to use large amounts of mulch (since I had my tree benches on what had been a grass lawn - and I knew I would have to reseed before we left). So I don't blame the cold, per se, as much as the conditions that the cold and the holidays, together, created.
 
I just had a crazy idea. We know that completely burying a tree in snow will protect it both from wind and from cold. Has anyone tried using a snow machine to protect trees? Apparently, you can get cheap ones that would probably have no problem covering a cluster of bonsai trees.


Never mind. It looks like these all use "snow fluid" to create "realistic snow." They aren't just a scaled-down version of the machines they use at ski resorts to make real snow.
 
Never mind. It looks like these all use "snow fluid" to create "realistic snow." They aren't just a scaled-down version of the machines they use at ski resorts to make real snow.

A real snow maker is going to cost around $400, not including the air compressor.
 
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