Harry HarringtonArtist and Author, Bonsai4me · Author, Publisher, Webmaster, Bonsai Artist

Bonsai Garden In Winter : Behind The Scenes Part Two

15 Jan 2020 · 5 min

Watch on YouTube

4:33

In this behind‑the‑scenes video, Harry Harrington walks viewers through his bonsai garden’s winter setup, focusing on a newly installed 5 m × 2.5 m polytunnel. He explains how the clear film distributes light while maintaining high humidity, providing essential protection from rain for young hawthorn and olive trees. The olives, being extremely drought‑tolerant, are kept in the unheated tunnel to avoid root rot from excess moisture. Harrington describes the light winter maintenance routine—preventing soil from completely drying, occasional misting, and increased watering as spring approaches. He details his monthly application of the root‑stimulating products Cannazym and Myosotonic, and the use of large‑grain pumice in pots and crates to ensure aeration for trees originating from a dry, aerated hill soil. The video also highlights natural deer and rabbit damage that creates striking live veins on hawthorn, a unique aesthetic feature. Finally, he outlines the seasonal workflow of moving proven trees under a large willow’s cooler, sheltered canopy in spring to protect them from direct sun and rain.

Chapters

So many people are familiar with my garden in pictures and on video, but in this series of videos I thought I'd show you behind the scenes. Walking past the monkey poles in my private collection, we then come to the area where I have the polytunnels and my new polytunnel. Installed in October 2019. It's 5 meters by 2.5 meters, so there's plenty of space in there for more trees. So this is inside the new building. This is a bigger polytunnel. It's got a clear film that will disperse light around the entire polytunnel rather than being shaded. However, there's still high humidity levels in this area, and it provides lots of humidity for hawthorn that have successfully made it through their first growing season after collection but still need a little care. And most importantly, it gives protection from continual rain. through their first winter after collection. Now, we also have olives in this polytunnel, and the olives are extremely hardy and can be found almost up to the snowline in many countries. However, they've evolved to adapt and have adapted to very, very little amount of moisture, sometimes as little as 2 to 3 liters of water a year. This means that if they're given continual cold wet through the winter, the roots can start to rot, and that's something obviously you want to avoid. So the olives are in here in an unheated polytunnel but protected from the rain. Now most of the trees in here, once they come into leaf and they've proven themselves and survived some heat and sun, In the spring, they will start to be moved out underneath the sheltered area underneath the large willow that's in this garden. It's a little cooler there, and again, it's out of the direct sun most of the day and out of a lot of rain. Maintenance of the, the trees in this area during the winter is fairly light. I will make sure that the trees don't actually completely— the soil doesn't completely dry out, and might give them a very light misting. Where I'll need to be concerned is as spring approaches and we start having warmer temperatures, I may need to do a little more watering. All of the trees are given Cannazym on a month-by-month basis and are given myosotonic as well. Both will help stimulate the root growth in the spring. You'll notice that a lot of the trees are in crates or pots with a lot of holes, and getting that aeration through the large-grain pumice is very important for these trees, particularly as they've come up from a hill which is a very, very dry, aerated soil. You'll notice a lot of the trees have a lot of deer and rabbit damage that they've picked up over the years, and this creates some fantastic features on them, and I think it's the This is the first time that I've seen natural live veins on any deciduous tree, let alone a hawthorn. And that's what makes this hawthorn particularly special.