As I was reading the "Twiddling Thumbs" post, a question came to mind, since I am in the same situation, not much going on. All my container maples are stored in my garage over winter. I do this every year. The garage is under the house, so usually stays in the 30's, unless it gets really cold, like below 0 farenheit, then it can get into the mid 20's F. To my question. It would seem to me to be a perfect time to prune all my maples. They are dormant, I could pull each one out and look at it carefully, prune and then have them ready for spring. I know there are people out there who store their maples in their garage, does anyone do this? Is there a reason why it would not be a good thing to do? I usally prune the outside maples in the winter if/when we get a 40 F. degree in January. It seems to work well. If I could work on the ones in the garage, it would sure keep me from twiddling my thumbs all winter:) Kay
Hi Kaydye-- Yes, I keep my maples in pots in my cold basement, which sounds a lot like yours--30s most of the time, 20s sometimes. The cold doesn't seem to harm them. For years, I've done all of my pruning and repotting in the winter. At one time, I followed the bonsai recommendation of waiting until late winter, but it doesn't seem to make much difference. I've repotted maples in January and even December, with no ill effect (unless I forget to water for too long). A bigger problem for me is that the plants in the warmer climate of the basement break dormancy earlier, so I end up with a lot of etiolated plants with lax new growth that have to be slowly accustomed to more sun. For the last couple of years I've been trying to get them outside before they break dormancy, which for me is sometime in March. That seems to take care of the premature leaf-out. Dan
Hey Dan Otis, I still refer to the list you posted years ago of Japanese maples that have done well in your area, to know what I might have luck with. Now it's so great to hear about your experience with pruning and potting. I was mostly just thinking about the pruning part, but it would sure be nice to get any repotting done in winter, too. Do you find you have to water them more often if they're freshly repotted? I water mine once a month in the garage, unless it is bitterly cold and they are frozen solid, then I wait until it gets in the 30's again. Though, if there's snow, I sometimes throw that on and figure it will melt when the temps are high enough. But that's with established ones. I've never tried repotting in winter. Are you root pruning too when you repot? I think I may try to do a little pruning this week. May wait on the repotting, though. I have the same problem with the leaves coming out early, but my bigger problem is once I sit them out, the sap must be really sweet because everything (mice, chipmunks, squirrels) eats on them, tearing off branches...ugh. It drives me crazy every year. There are some cultivars that must taste like candy to them. I take it you don't have that problem? I even have a little unheated poly greenhouse I try to use, but they can get in and do the same thing in it. Well, thanks so much for the advice. Kay
Hi Kay-- I don't post much but I check the list nearly every day, just to see what's going on. Not much, these days, so I'll run on a bit, and wander off topic. I don't think you have to water more often when you've just repotted, but I do think the consequences can be worse if you miss a watering. I used to think that once a month was enough during winter, but I found that my smallest pots tended to dry out. Now I try to wet them down at least a little every two weeks. If it were colder in my basement it probably wouldn't be necessary, and maybe that's your situation. I don't have the slightest hesitation about pruning in winter. I always root prune when I repot, too--if I don't need to root prune, why am I repotting? I figure I only need to repot when the current pot is full of roots, and because I don't necessarily want my trees to get much bigger (I had to buy a dolly this fall to help move the big ones), I don't usually put them in much bigger pots. So: root pruning is usually in order. I expect to have another 1000 palmatum seedlings coming along in spring, plus the 500 or so from last year. Not sure what I'll do with them--I already separated out the few that are worth keeping an eye on. And most of my friends don't want any more--they're full. This year my pseudosieboldianum produced fruit for the first time, so I hope to have a hundred of them, mostly open-pollinated with palmatum, I think. I also hope to have a fair number of shirasawanum 'Autumn Moon' seedlings; no idea who the fathers are, though. These days I'm not buying more cultivars and I try to limit myself to 50 trees in pots. So I have about 60, but many are still small. Are you using bonsai tools for pruning? If you haven't, you should give them a try. They are wonderful--if you try them you'll never go back to the Felcos. I use concave cutters for all my winter pruning. Not appropriate for large cuts, but for small fiddly pruning indoors in winter they are ideal. It is so interesting that you have trouble with squirrels eating your trees. I don't have mice or chipmunks here, but there are swarms of squirrels. They never bother my trees, either the thirty or so I have in the ground or the ones in pots. And I know the local squirrels like maple sap--there's a big sugar maple right outside my window, and I see squirrels nibbling holes in the bark and returning again and again to drink the sap. The only trouble is that they dig among my seedling flats if I don't keep them covered in winter. I have a maple hedge out front--about 20 trees, grown too close together, all my seedlings. I planted them based on their spring color, trying to get a good variety, and I think that spring color is predictive of fall color. For a few days every fall, they really are glorious. Anyway, I prune them quite severely every year, and that tends to keep them in a juvenile state (I learned in my plant propagation class that juvenile shoots root more easily than mature wood, so some commercial propagators cut their stock plants back hard every year). What's interesting is this--in general I have what I think are fairly typical losses from Verticillium and related vascular fungi, losing a branch here and a tree there nearly every year. (The latest casualty is 'Saoshika,' my favorite.) Over the last 20 years, I've probably lost a third of the trees I've planted in the ground. But of the trees in my hedge--the ones I cut back hard and keep juvenile--I haven't lost even one. Not what I would expect--they seem immune, even though they are crowded together and receive no attention other than pruning. So here's a question--are young trees, less than 5 years old, say, and trees that are severely pruned less susceptible to the dreaded vascular fungi--what we here tend to call "tight bark disease"? I would say so. I'd love to hear what people are expecting to germinate in the spring. D.
I like to get out in the winter and prune out anything that has died back, small thin twigs that may not have hardened off in time and could not stand up to the winter. I usually find myself doing this in January. I find when removing twiggy die back over the winter, that it increases the vigor of the tree during the growing season. The branches that are not sustainable, alive but not desirable, I mark with paint and prune in early summer. By taking this approach you have the benefit of making pruning decisions with no leaves on the trees, but you are not making the cuts until the summer. Also, waiting gives you a second chance to see the tree leafed out, as you may change your mind about removing the branch when you see the impact to the overall appearance when it's in leaf. It's been my experience that when making larger cuts in the winter, the tree takes longer to recover from the cut. The wound wood takes longer to form. It also seems that the same cut at the collar seems to die back further, where if done in the growing season it would not die back at all. I feel the cold, frost, and winter winds tend to cause the cut to die back further than desired. I also find the branches that were pruned, but not removed during the winter tend to be less vigorous come spring. I only speak from experience in the Midwest / Great Lakes region of the US. Some areas may be more forgiving than my area. I do not have scientific evidence to back what I'm saying above, it's only from observations over the years from trying different techniques. Every book seems to have a different idea of what’s the best time to prune. I find my approach seems to work well for my collection in my area, so I thought it was worth sharing.
