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PROTECT YOUR BONSAI IN THE HOT WEATHER
By Carole | January 30, 2009
I certainly fear for the health of some of the bonsai in the Southern parts of Australia at present.
In this searing heat bonsai should have some light shade. In our nursery we remove the shadecloth from our shade houses in winter and put them back on from November to early March.
The heat doesn’t affect the top of the tree as much as it damages the roots by heating the pot. Any temperatures over 35 degrees are likely to cause the pot to heat up and damage the roots of the bonsai.
If you can’t provide a tempory shadehouse, there are other measures that can be taken to keep the pots cooler.
A geat solution is to place the bonsai in its pot in a white foam box, then pack sphagnum moss in the space between the bonsai pot and the white box. Don’t forget to mulch the soil surface as well. The sphagnum moss can be kept moist without soaking the roots of the bonsai.
Misting the foliage twice a day is also a great help, but unfortunately not always possible for some of us.
An alternative is to install a sprinkler system, on a timer that comes on twice a day for a few minutes at a time.
The concern here is that the pressure of the water might blow the hose joiners apart and waste water.
If you have rain water tanks or a dam, it is possible that the water pressure won’t be as strong as town water.
The beauty of rain water tanks is that we have separate pumps for them so a simple timer can be placed at the powerpoint and when the power is off the water is also off. If something did blow apart it couldn’t waste very much water as the misters only need to be on for (say) 5 minutes in the morning and again in the afternoon.
As well as warm weather, we in Queensland are getting a lot of rain at present. It really is essential in our climate that we use a fast draining mix. Otherwise we could find our trees dying from root rot.
I hope this helps save some trees. Good luck
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