Award winner at the 2012 U.S. National Bonsai Exhibition for the Finest Deciduous Bonsai. It's a Japanese Maple by Suthin Sukolosovisit of Royal Bonsai. It has little to do with the topic of this post (except that Japanese maple leaves are prone to sunburn), but you might like to know that the 2012 U.S. National Bonsai Exhibition is out of print and the last two albums (2014 and 2016) are still available.
When the sun gets too hot…
July 16, 2015 by Michael Hagedorn, Crataegus Bonsai
“There are various ways of helping our bonsai cope with sun and not literally cooking them on our benches in the summertime. They are in pots, but it doesn’t mean we want to fry a special root dish, in a soil sauce…
“Because bonsai are in pots, they are very unlike trees in the ground. We want to reduce any similarities to a dog in a car on a hot day.”
Fry your bonsai it can, without cooking oil…
“There are two situations… A cooler climate with rare spikes in temperature to 100 F / 38 C or higher that might last a few days, and then there are the hot summer areas that are always that high:
Sudden, rare spikes in cooler climates:
Simply relocate your trees temporarily. Don’t bring them inside, but on the ground is a good start, under benches maybe, in light shade. Try to avoid full shade. Place them close together, but still retaining ease of watering. Plants near other plants cool one another with transpiration. Placing bonsai on grass is going to be a lot cooler than on a sidewalk.
Hot weather areas:
These areas need site modification… ”
For the rest of the article, visit Crataegus Bonsai.
BTW: if you’ve never visited Michael’s Crataegus Bonsai, you’re missing some of the best writing and most useful bonsai information on the web. And speaking of writing, Michael is the author of one of our favorite bonsai books: Post-Dated – The Schooling of an Irreverent Bonsai Monk.
Photo from Shohin Bonsai by Morten Albek (out of print).
A Watering Wand is an excellent idea. As is a Fog-It nozzle (not shown here but available at Stone Lantern).
