Does anyone know of Ryan ever talking about when your stuck in the bonsai shuffle mode. (Let me lay out the example )…
After a repot (pine) and have access to a heat bed in unheated garage 45-65°.
Say in my zone 7B where daytimes are about 32-45° fahrenheit but nighttimes go down to 20-5°. Is it actually advantageous to use the heat bed when the trees are inside, when the sun is not out. Then during the daytime have them outside in a cold frame but no heat on their roots. Assuming the tempt is about 32°?
Is this the optimal trade off or would sacrificing one another be more productive for the tree? At this point the pines and everything on my yard has met cold dormancy requirements.
The forementioned has been my plan but because I can see it making sense (not that that’s a good proxy)BUT before I turn an idea into a bad habit I wanted to see, how you handle this situation?
Since you have not gotten any feedback, I will throw in my two cents. I would probably set the heat bed up outside to keep the roots warm while allowing the top to be cooler. I would set it up to keep the entire pot above freezing (i.e. pot buried and possibly covered). I would also set it up so I could cover the tree when the temp starts to drop much below 25F. A mild freeze of the upper portion should not cause any issues as long as the roots don’t freeze. Covering will probably take care of temps down to at least 15F.
Like this if you’re a fan of the bonsai shuffle! It seems to get a bad wrap, but I enjoy having an excuse to put my hands on trees that would otherwise be hands-off.
Thanks Marty and I totally agree, this was my plan for next year and moving forward. Currently constructing the new repotting heat-mat setup.
Right now my outdoor heat-mat is full with collected yamadori from last season. So right now I only have a small 12x10 heat mat set up inside under a grow light for some of my tropicals, that I am borrowing for the two pines at night. I know this is not ideal but my question is: Is this useful or is this potentially doing more harm than just bringing the pines in and putting them on the ground without the heat overnight?
I get that this is pretty deep in the weeds of nuance and I think your answer is the most polite version of what I was thinking “hurry the hell up and build the other setup and forget about the question”!
I have noticed them drying out to where they need to be watered every 36hours, where everything else in this cold frame in full sun that stays outside over night, is still on a typical winter watering schedule. once a week at best.
thanks for the additional motivation to get the work done
I agree and I dont mind having a few it keeps my mind in the Bonsai game. This year the goal was to keep the number of trees in the shuffle in the single digits but we will see if it early!
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