treebeard55

Like most of us, I think, I've treated serissas as tropical trees. This included keeping them indoors and warm during our winters.

Recently, Carl Rosner and Jerry Meislik challenged my ideas about this species, and challenged them seriously. Jerry said that in his observation, serissa do best with a winter "cool-down:" 6-8 weeks with temperatures in the range of 35-45 F (approx. 2-7 C.) Carl reports that he routinely buries his serissas to the pot rims in his garden each winter, and mulches them. He lives in southern New Jersey, USA, where he occasionally gets winter lows in the single digits F. His serissas, he says, thrive with this treatment, and "bloom like crazy" in the spring.

After some thought, I decided to overwinter my serissa with my JBP and trident maples, in a back room where they will all be kept cold but not bear the full brunt of our Zone 5b winter. (JBP and tridents are not fully hardy here when in a pot.)

The die was cast last nite. The low was supposed to be about 32 F (0 C), and I left the serissa on the deck when I brought my tropicals inside. This morning there was frost on the cars, and a tray of rainwater had a thin skin of ice on it.

The serissa was on the lower level of a plastic shelf (orange arrow in picture,) and about a meter from the outer wall of our bedroom. Both those factors would ameliorate the cold a little, but only a little.

We'll see how the new approach works. I do have one other serissa, a rooted cutting I took from this tree a few months ago. That will stay with my tropicals this winter, sort of as a back-up if anything goes wrong!

Attached Images

Serissa outside 001.jpg (99.2 KB, 43 views)

__________________
Treebeard 55
Steve Moore
http://hoosierbonsai.blogspot.com

The most important bonsai tool is your brain.

Sruhl

How is your serissa doing? Is the room that it is in a little warmer than the outside or is it mainly just sheltering the trees from the weather?

treebeard55

Welcome to the forum, Sruhl.

The mudroom where I had my serissa is unheated, but still traps some heat seeping from the rest of the house; this in addition to blocking wind, snow, falling twigs, etc. It has two windows, one facing south, the other west.

The tree was closer to the south window, but still getting limited light. Temperatures in there fluctuate, but the average was warm enough that the tree was still growing slowly -- and getting leggy!

A few days ago I decided to move it outside, under the shelter that houses my hardy trees for the winter. The covering is a Du Pont product called "Garden Blanket" (TM?) which is supposed to give 7 degrees of frost protection, besides blocking most of the force of the wind. The back yard is already well protected from wind, so the trees get gentle air movement around them from time to time, and that's all.

I checked it a little while ago, and it looks fine; no leaf loss yet. I plan to leave it out there until lows start getting down to 10-12 F; by then I hope to have a better spot ready back in the mudroom. It's a gamble, I realize.

Here's a picture of the shelter, and of the serissa as of about an hour ago.

Attached Images

	BV Winterquarters 002.jpg (88.1 KB, 14 views)
	B096, 12-26-09.jpg (94.2 KB, 26 views)

__________________
Treebeard 55
Steve Moore
http://hoosierbonsai.blogspot.com

The most important bonsai tool is your brain.

Sruhl

That's cool, I didn't know they could handle those temperatures!! I bet more light would fix the leggyness problem. Unfortunately my dad forgot to water mine while I was away for a while and it died. He's one of those black thumbs kind of people and I didn't have anyone else.

artyanimal

LOL it was 31F last night where I llive in S. Florida and I was worried about mine. Gray hairs for nothing I guess.

Sheesh! I had no idea.

Cheers,

arty

treebeard55

Many of us can say that!

__________________
Treebeard 55
Steve Moore
http://hoosierbonsai.blogspot.com

The most important bonsai tool is your brain.

Michel

Hi,

Nothing new about that;
I wrote that several years ago, already.

Several members of our club (usually good bonsaiists, though)
have trouble keeping Serissas, calling them "very difficult trees".
They all kept them invariably as (semi-)tropicals, thus taking
them indoors very soon (if at all having placed them outdoors
in summer) on the window till over the central heating:
great way to kill a Serissa, in my opinion.

Several other members -including me- however, have no
problems whatsoever with them (We find them extremely easy),
but with us they stay outside as long as temps don't go below
freezing point, and there's the big difference.
And when those temps finally do dip further, I store them
in my cool garage. If temps drop into freezing spells,
my azza's, maples, . . . go in the garage as well.

Only a few very winter hardy deciduous trees
(Malus, Prunus, Salix, Carpinus, ...)
usually stay outside, together with (usually) all conifers.

Only exception to this rule is right now a
Chaemacypharis Pisifera "Boulevard", a conifer I placed
in the garage as well for now:

Reason for that is another general rule: I never expose a tree to
icey temps if repotted after the preceding summer,
and this tree was (emergency) repotted last october.

On the other hand, I never risked leaving my Serissas outside
during (mild) freezing periods yet.

__________________
Greetz,
Michel