Tree Tips

This month there will be a show you will not want to miss: The Pacific Bonsai Expo.

It is being held at The Bridge Yard, 210 Burma Rd, Oakland on November 12th and 13th . Check it out online or at Jonas’ Bonsai Tonight website. You need to purchase tickets in advance.

Fall Tips

It actually seems like it’s fall. No rain, but cooler days and nights. Each year I save a lot of water from my down-spout diverter off of the roof. I store it in 32 gal trash cans to use later after the rains shut down. It’s clean water I can use to hand water specific trees with a 2 gallon can. I also have a water pump in a 50 gal can attached to a hose to make it easier for general watering. Better than San Jose Water out of the tap at this time of year.

Its time to style, wire, pluck needles and make big bends on conifers. You can work on practically everything now except black pines, save them for next month. Here in the Bay Area, continue to fertilize your trees with low power fish emulsion (5-1-1). This will fire up a good energetic spring response in a few months. As the leaves fall after color change on deciduous trees, you can cut back to two buds from now to mid-January, to set up growth in the Spring.

Bending and wiring

The growth that has been coming on since summer should be hardening and will no longer snap like a bean if you bend it. But try this: exercise the branch before you bend it. By this I mean pre-bend it, using the fleshy part of your fingers and palm, supporting and twisting the branch in the direction you wish to ultimately bend it before actually putting the wire on. Trust your fingers to tell you if you have gone far enough. They are actually more reliable than your eyes. You can get much more acute bends this way. If it still resists you may need to use raffia to support it. Spray the bent branches with an anti-transpirant like Anti-Stress 2000® or Cloud Cover® or Wilt-Pruf®. This is an ideal time to fashion those branches before they harden off totally over winter. 

Deciduous trees should be wired when most of the foliage has fallen off but before they become brittle later into the winter dormant period. Remove the foliage when about 75% of the foliage has turned color. If you wait until December, any cutting may cause some trees to bleed excessively.

You can still style and transplant those junipers (they really love fall transplanting) and early flowering trees but protect them from frosts if we get some cold weather. 

Fall cleaning

For most trees, now is the time to clean off the top layer of sphagnum moss we had on during the hot summer season, as well as the top soil that has accumulated spent fertilizer and weed seeds and is growing seasonal moss now in order to make sure it doesn’t get up into the bark of your trees. Silver moss that you used for the show can be taken off and put in your landscaping where it will get early morning sun and regular water. You can grow a new crop for next year. Clean off dead leaves and remove weeds. Add some super phosphate to the top soil and any transplanting that you do.

Be sure to clean out the foliage in the crotch areas and allow the sunlight into the interior to stimulate new buds and expose bugs.

December is usually best but if the pine needles have hardened, clean out the old needles on your trees to let the sunlight in. Leave more needles on the bottom branches, 10 to 15 pairs, and fewer, 7 to 10 on top. At this point we want to encourage as much sun as we can. Later we’ll thin out even more. But watch that you don’t damage tender needles that haven’t hardened. Use tweezers, or use scissors if plucking causes bleeding. Days are getting really short and cooler.

prevent and maintain

Remember to make your first application of dormant spray at Thanksgiving. Ultrafine® oil, Neem Oil, copper, or lime sulfur sprays do well. Do not mix them together!

Water your trees when they need it. This means that you should wait until the upper soil has dried and is lighter in color before watering. Then water thoroughly. Don’t keep them too wet and remember that as they slow down their growth they use less water. If too much water is accumulating in the pot, tip the pot up on one side with a block to help drainage.

Whatever shade cloth you had for your trees can be eliminated at this point. The hours of sunlight and angle of the sun are approaching their minimums so the trees need all they can get. Also, tropicals have to be protected as the temperatures get down below 45º.