CA weather and seasons

[Beng]

As many of you know I just moved back to the west coast. West LA California to be exact. The Marine layer governs the weather here more then anything.

So far I've had a chance to visit Bob at Kimura Nursery, Gary at Chikugo-en, San Gabriel Nursery and a few others. Lots of great material out here so I've been quickly restocking my plants.

What can you all tell me about dormancy in regards to deciduous trees out here? I noticed while at Chikugo-en Gary had defoliated a number of his deciduous trees. Was this to instill a sense of false dormancy in them? I forgot to ask Gary about it when I was there. Will be at the show at the end of the month out in burbank looking forward to meeting more local artists. In the mean time, please enlighten me to whatever you can about growing in Southern California.

Already have my benches set up new trees up and shade cloths installed.

Ben

 

[Beng]

I lived our here years ago but at that time I was working with tropicals, evergreens and very few deciduous trees. Honestly I wasn't very into bonsai back then so I didn't try to learn as much as i should have about succesfully growing trees here and my collection remained pretty stagnant during that time.

 

[Si Nguyen]

Hello, welcome to LA, I am the OC a bit south of you.
Yes, defoliation is ok for many deciduous trees in your area in the late fall. I do it for my maples and sweet gums and few others. I used to defoliate elms too but they got too much so I stopped. The only thing I would add that you may not have been taught already is to move the D trees into complete shade in the winter. This keeps the pot and the tree a few degrees cooler. But make sure it is a well ventilated area to reduce chances of getting fungus and the dreaded verticillium wilt.
Good luck!

 

[Beng]

Hello, welcome to LA, I am the OC a bit south of you.
Yes, defoliation is ok for many deciduous trees in your area in the late fall. I do it for my maples and sweet gums and few others. I used to defoliate elms too but they got too much so I stopped. The only thing I would add that you may not have been taught already is to move the D trees into complete shade in the winter. This keeps the pot and the tree a few degrees cooler. But make sure it is a well ventilated area to reduce chances of getting fungus and the dreaded verticillium wilt.
Good luck!

Thanks so if I have a 30% shade cloth up increase it to about a 70-80% this time of year?

Ben

 

[bonsaibp]

In W.LA what you have should be fine. Usually I wait until Nov. to defoliate any D trees with haven't dropped their leaves.

 

[carobone]

Beng,

Welcome back.

Another reason for defoliation in our climate, at least in my opinion, is for smaller/reduction in leaf size. My deciduous really don't drop their leaves, with the exception of my tridents.

One other nursery you may want to visit is House of Bonsai, although materials there tend to be less of quality as compared to others. Good place for materials

Post pictures of your trees when you have a chance, would love to see them

-Vince

 

[Beng]

The tree I'm most looking forward to working with is a large variegated shimpaku I got from chikugo-en its trunk is about 7-8 inches wide and it was grown as semi cascade. I plan to repot it this year it was last repotted 10 years ago Gary said, although it doesn't seem to be severely root bound as you would imagine. Then graft itoigawa or kishu to the whole tree the following spring. 10 years from now it should be a world class tree. Buying a cameras on my list as iPhone photos are no good. Maybe later this year that will happen.

 

[Ris]

Hi Ben,
The shade cloth is good enough, protect them from the wide chills and all will be great...
Tomorrow is kofu bonsai Kai meeting at Anaheim Methodist church, 1000 south state collage blvd, Anaheim. It's meeting will be on Saikei scene arrangement...

 

[bonhe]

What can you all tell me about dormancy in regards to deciduous trees out here?Ben

Hi Ben, welcome back to Southern California.
For me, the location of the tree in the garden is very important! I don't use any shade cloths since my garden design will not be looking good with those! If I want my deciduous tree go into dormancy, I just place them in the north side of the garden. My ume, crabapple love this location in the fall and winter!
Bonhe

 

[Beng]

Thanks at my place I have south east, south, and west / south west exposure. No northern exposure unfortunately, or I have it but it's open to a major public road so that wouldn't work. I could place some of my trees on the lower areas of my south east benches in the winter. they'd be shaded almost completely by a wall. I built a suspended overhand over my benches to put up a shade cloth so it wouldn't look bad. Works real well, I shaded out all but one of my benches which I keep Junipers, Pines, and a few tropicals on. I have most of the deciduous trees including umes a friend cared for while I was on the east coast they're quite old now and have lived all their life in socal on the south east facing side as it gets more shade from surrounding trees. The trees on the south and south west side get full sun from late morning to sunset.

Ben

 

[Si Nguyen]

Hi Ben, welcome back to Southern California.
For me, the location of the tree in the garden is very important! I don't use any shade cloths since my garden design will not be looking good with those! If I want my deciduous tree go into dormancy, I just place them in the north side of the garden. My ume, crabapple love this location in the fall and winter!
Bonhe

That's right on Bonhe! This is what I meant to say to you Ben. Move your bare D trees to complete shade if possible. For us southern Cali folks, that just mean the shady side of the yard. We usually don't have much space to move around. The shady side is usually 5 degrees cooler in the day. Keep it as cool as possible in order to help it stay in dormancy longer.

 

[Neli]

I was speaking to someone in Malaysia this , and as coincidence found this thread.
What he said is that maples have hard time there due to, the climate, but some growers succeeded keeping them alive..for long time by defoliating them in Autumn.
What implication this has I can not figure out yet.
While we are on the subject of the climate of So Cal, I would like to ask which trees are impossible to grow there, and which ones need special care to survive the climate.
I know white pine...and that is all.
Gingko????and some others???

 

[Beng]

From what i've been told white pine can grow here if it's started here as a seedling and grafted at a very young age to black pine root stock. You can't buy a white pine grown outside of a zone 10 climate like those at NE Bonsai and bring it here and expect it to live, it will surely die. At Chikogu-en Gary also grows red pine on black pine rootstock. Some of the trees listed below like satsuki need special protection and year round and filtered water. The below list comes from conversations I've had with several professionals living and working out here. It's by no means complete.

Guess it depends where you live too. I'm in west LA and the ocean keeps things pretty cool here most of the time. If you live inland or in the valley some of these species like japanese maples, cherries, and satsuki would probably not work. Bob at Kimura says satsuki's don't survive where he's at in the valley, but others in my area grow them successfully.

Black Pine
Silverberry
Other types of hollies
Crape Myrtle
Crabapple
Ginko
San Hose Juniper
Itoigawa Juniper
Kishu Juniper
Wisteria
Willow
Tamarix
Satsuki "Tricky to grow here need filtered water and shade most of the year"
Japanese Maples "Tricky to grow here needs shade from late spring to mid fall, roots need to stay cool in the winter. Better to bury the pot in a shady spot."
Trident Maples
Japanese Apricot and Plum
Winter Jasmine
Oak
Italian Cypress
Some types of japanese cherries "Tricky to grow here needs shade from late spring to mid fall, roots need to stay cool in the winter. Better to bury the pot in a shady spot."
Japanese Quince
Chinese Quince
Hornbeam
Boxwood
Bougainvillea
Barbados Cherry
Forsythia
Princess Persimmon
Dwarf Pomegranate
Olive

 

[coh]

Beng,

Good to hear that you've arrived safely in California! I don't have any advice, since I've never lived out there. However, it is interesting to read about the procedures you guys need to go through to deal with "winter", such as it is in that area. Good luck!

Chris

 

[Beng]

Beng,

Good to hear that you've arrived safely in California! I don't have any advice, since I've never lived out there. However, it is interesting to read about the procedures you guys need to go through to deal with "winter", such as it is in that area. Good luck!

Chris

Thanks. It's taken some research but I think i've got my head around how they do things out here.

Ben

 

[Neli]

From what i've been told white pine can grow here if it's started here as a seedling and grafted at a very young age to black pine root stock. You can't buy a white pine grown outside of a zone 10 climate like those at NE Bonsai and bring it here and expect it to live, it will surely die. At Chikogu-en Gary also grows red pine on black pine rootstock. Some of the trees listed below like satsuki need special protection and year round and filtered water. The below list comes from conversations I've had with several professionals living and working out here. It's by no means complete.

Guess it depends where you live too. I'm in west LA and the ocean keeps things pretty cool here most of the time. If you live inland or in the valley some of these species like japanese maples, cherries, and satsuki would probably not work. Bob at Kimura says satsuki's don't survive where he's at in the valley, but others in my area grow them successfully.

Black Pine
Silverberry
Other types of hollies
Crape Myrtle
Crabapple
Ginkgo
San Hose Juniper
Itoigawa Juniper
Kishu Juniper
Wisteria
Willow
Tamarix
Satsuki "Tricky to grow here need filtered water and shade most of the year"
Japanese Maples "Tricky to grow here needs shade from late spring to mid fall, roots need to stay cool in the winter. Better to bury the pot in a shady spot."
Trident Maples
Japanese Apricot and Plum
Winter Jasmine
Oak
Italian Cypress
Some types of japanese cherries "Tricky to grow here needs shade from late spring to mid fall, roots need to stay cool in the winter. Better to bury the pot in a shady spot."
Japanese Quince
Chinese Quince
Hornbeam
Boxwood
Bougainvillea
Barbados Cherry
Forsythia
Princess Persimmon
Dwarf Pomegranate
Olive

Thanks a million. I really needed this info. What are the winter temperatures like in your area, lowest at night?
I think I have all this species, apart for forsythia, Japanese Apricot and Plum, and Tamarix.

I am a bit worried about the ginkgo, Wisteria, oak, and princess persimmon.
When you say Satzuki needs filtered water, You mean salts removed by reverse osmosis?

 

[Beng]

Thanks a million. I really needed this info. What are the winter temperatures like in your area, lowest at night?
I think I have all this species, apart for forsythia, Japanese Apricot and Plum, and Tamarix.

I am a bit worried about the ginkgo, Wisteria, oak, and princess persimmon.
When you say Satzuki needs filtered water, You mean salts removed by reverse osmosis?

Apparently its Boron in our water that they don't like. The average low in dec / jan in my area is 48. Theres an article on it somewhere online see if you can find it with a google search. I lived here before and sometimes albeit rarely it falls into the upper 30's and everyone panicks a bit. I think I've seen it snow here once in the years I used to live here (very rare) and when that happens even if its a dusting the whole city shuts down. Ginkgo and wisteria are fine here, check out the species huntington gardens has as well as going to local bonsai nurseries. Obviously the trees at huntington have the soil to temper their temps and give them a better winter. There are tons if oak here as well, and princess persimmon is rated to zone 11 I think and we are zone 10b not that zones matter much for what we do since we can manipulate the conditions. As long as a tree doesn't need a long cold dormancy and can tolerate heat it should be fine. A shade cloth is a must though for deciduous broad leaf trees. I plan to join the west LA santa monica club eventually and a number of their members I hear grow satsuki. I have a "clean water fun" filter hooked up to my hose output I plan to change it every 6 months if the Satsukis I have start to decline i'm going to switch to RO water but I doubt that will be necessary. Yamaguchi nursery on Sawtelle has a number of satsukis in full sun somehow one of which I believe its chinzan they've had for over 10 years. Are you moving to the area too?

Ben

 

[Si Nguyen]

Southern California has multiple climate zones. We have several big mountains that are just 1-2 hours drive from the beach, even with some decent ski resorts. In the higher elevations, I have seen people with decent forsythia and dogwood and white pine bonsai's, so they can be grown here in So Cal, technically speaking. In the valleys and along the coast line, we can grow almost anything except larches and Japanese white pines. It is too warm and too dry for those; and our tap water is bad. I have a few larches and imported white pines for over 10 years, but they don't really thrive here. The nurseries do sell them here, but don't buy them. Most nurseries have RO water, so your tree will notice it right away when you bring it home. Our tap water is really bad but that's a whole different topic. Gingkos and maples and satsukis can grow pretty well here though, even in the really dry hot valleys. One of the best Satsuki nursery in America is in the Los Angeles area near Pasadena ( Nuccio's).

 

[Beng]

I thought forsythia didn't need a hard freeze like many other deciduous trees. Most species are rated between zone 6 and 9 not far off from our zone 10. Do they suffer severe leaf burn or need a colder dormant period then we can provide them here? I have my eye on one I was going to buy but maybe I should hold off.

 

[Beng]

Southern California has multiple climate zones. We have several big mountains that are just 1-2 hours drive from the beach, even with some decent ski resorts. In the higher elevations, I have seen people with decent forsythia and dogwood and white pine bonsai's, so they can be grown here in So Cal, technically speaking. In the valleys and along the coast line, we can grow almost anything except larches and Japanese white pines. It is too warm and too dry for those; and our tap water is bad. I have a few larches and imported white pines for over 10 years, but they don't really thrive here. The nurseries do sell them here, but don't buy them. Most nurseries have RO water, so your tree will notice it right away when you bring it home. Our tap water is really bad but that's a whole different topic. Gingkos and maples and satsukis can grow pretty well here though, even in the really dry hot valleys. One of the best Satsuki nursery in America is in the Los Angeles area near Pasadena ( Nuccio's).

Did you start your white pines here or did you get them from back east? 10 years is a long time so i'm guessing yours are acclimated now. Suprised you can grow larch here, i thought they needed a really hard freeze!

I own a reverse osmosis system but I haven't hooked it up yet. Perhaps I should fill a trash can with RO water and start using it. Just read the water quality report for 2012 https://www.ladwp.com/cs/idcplg?Idc...060036&RevisionSelectionMethod=LatestReleased and it sounds like their filtration here is years behind what they use where i came from in NYC.

"The new $60-million facility,
expected to be operational in April
2014, is needed to comply with new
water quality regulations established
by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (USEPA). The
LAAFP currently treats the city’s
drinking water by injecting ozone
to kill bacteria, filtration to remove
particulate matter and chlorine
to disinfect to meet federal and
state water quality regulations and
standards.
The addition of UV treatment will
help protect against microbial
contaminants that exist naturally
in surface water sources and
will reduce the use of chemical
treatments, such as ozone and
chlorine. UV treatment is one of
the most cost effective methods
available, and has been identified
by the USEPA as one of the most
effective purification methods for
water treatment."