Mattbonsai

Hi all, earlier in the year I went to visit the 'in laws' in Berlin with my girlfriend, and while there we went to the Berlin Botanical gardens, and me, being me, during tree seeding season, came home with pockets full of seeds! and me, being me, didn't lable a single one Yay! So it was a bit of guess work.

So what I did, was seperate the seeds into piles, oaks in one pile, limes in another, aesculus in another and so on so forth. I planted them all up in 'communal' pots.

Yesterday, I checked on them, and have noticed that I have 3 little oak sprouts coming up in one pot, they're about 2 inches tall, and seem to be growing well. Trouble is, winter is on its way, and with -20c's forcast for us this winter I'm mildly worried, looking at the forcast we've probably got at max a month before the frosts come, which isn't enough time for them to build up enough to go dormant and survive, so my question is, does anyone have any ideas about what I should do? I can put them in the greenhouse, but it is unheated, so will still get down to as cold as it gets outside.

Cheers in advance

-Matt-

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Phil

Ya got me hanging out in the cold (no pun intended) on this Matt as I've never been one for seeds and I'm admittedly quite ignorant on the subject. Seeing the time of year I imagine you should have held onto them until early next spring for planting, but that's all hindsight now.
Hope you get some proper feedback on on this dilemma. Obviously you can't keep these seedling's growing for the duration of the winter. Have you any left?

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treebeard55

Do you have any place where they would be cold enough to go dormant without freezing? That might be enough. I can't help but think that this sort of thing has to happen from time to time in the wild.

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Mattbonsai

Hey guys,

Luckily, we've only had one mild frost up to now, and that didn't manage to penetrate into the greenhouse. I think this warm period may allow them to harden up ready for the winter. What I'm going to do is move them under the greenhouse bench, and then wrap the bench in horticultural fleece, hopefully this will keep it warm enough (and should also protect the bonsai pots that are under there). And we'll see how it goes.

Cheers

-Matt-

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