“Winter is coming.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
Brace yourself. Winter arrives this month. Even here in Zone 10, almost everything is dormant - even the evergreens are nearly dormant. We don't get snow or any of the joys of winter here in the flatlands of Southern California. It's just colder, darker much earlier and sometimes rainier. My bonsai care is mostly limited to weekends, since I come home from work in the dark. Most clubs don't have regular meetings this month, although a couple of them have winter banquets with pretty good raffles.
Here are some of the things I can or will do this month as we move into winter:
- Maintenance - By mid-December, there will be less cleaning of leaves to do. At the end of the month I apply a monthly winter dormant oil or lime sulfur to guard against infestations of insect eggs and fungal diseases. My dormant spray for deciduous, fruit and flowering trees is volk oil and water. For conifers and other evergreens, it's lime-sulfur (which I'm trying to find locally) and water. I'll use about 3 tablespoons per gallon.
. - Placement - I'm mostly just making sure none of the more susceptible trees are exposed to heavy rain. We rarely get a frost here. If we expect one, I might move some tropical trees into the house or the garage for a day or two. I'm putting the pines into the sunniest spots in the yard.
. - Watering - I continue to provide less water, avoiding the temptation to water every day. If we have an uncommonly hot or windy day, I'll check the pots to see if more water is needed. If there is an overnight freeze in the five-day forecast, I'll completely withhold water for a couple of days. Some of the trees only get water twice a week now, and a handful of natives are getting so little water that, depending upon the rainfall, I might not bring them a watering can all month.
. - Feeding - Everything but my tropicals are dormant. I'll give tropicals and some other evergreens one light feeding this month. No other feeding will take place until our first February heat wave, or until I see buds swelling, whichever comes first.
. - Wiring - I will wire some of my bare deciduous trees this month. It's okay to wire the conifers, too, but this must be done carefully, as the branches are more susceptible to breaking.
. - Pruning - My deciduous trees are bare. The flowering species will not be pruned until they've bloomed - if I prune now, all the potential blooms will go into the trash. I'm removing burned pine needles. Any unexpected new growth gets pinched back right away. It's getting to be time to start heavy pruning on junipers and pines, but I'll wait one more month. I have some radical pruning to do on my pines in January. I'm not reluctant to prune any broadleaf evergreen this month, but I don't have many that need it.
. - Grafting - This is a good month to graft conifers (especially later in the month) because the trees don't put out sap to get between the scion and the understock, but I'll probably do most of my grafting in January and early February.
. - Transplanting - Aside from putting bare-root stock into sand and diatomite, or digging up native species and potting them in diatomite or pumice, I'm doing no transplanting this month. Later this month, it gets to be an appropriate time to start repotting black pines, but I have none that will need repotting this year.
. - Collecting - It's still okay to collect native species in Southern California, and the return of rain makes it much easier to find healthy material that will survive the relocation to your backyard.
. - Cuttings - It's still a good time for hardwood cuttings. I'm cutting pencil-thick woody shoots, cut horizontally below a node or bud to a length of 5-10 inches, dipped in rooting hormone and planted in rooting mix underneath my benches. Mostly my sweetgum, maple and bougainvillea.
. - Seeds - It's a good time to begin stratifying the seeds that need cold stratification. Any seeds that need stratification are going into the wine cooler this month or at the beginning of next month. This year, I have coast live oak, liquidambar, Japanese maple and trident maple and Chinese elm seeds ready for planting.
. - Planning - I'll walk around my trees and ponder what to do with them next. Update my task list. Assess my trees' health. Are my trees all doing better now than at the beginning of the year? Almost all of them are. I have a computer folder of tree photos entitled RIP, so I'll spend a little time thinking about those trees (a shimpaku, a black pine, a needle juniper, some seedlings, a big nana and a collected elm), why I lost them, and how to reduce the risk of losing others in the future.
As the year winds down, I also reflect on that adage I mentioned in my first post. There are 20 year guys, and there are first year guys who have done their first year 20 times. Have I advanced beyond second year guy status this year? Did I have a year of actual growth as a bonsai artist? I think I have. 2015 will be my fourth year back in the bonsai art, and it's starting to show.
