It’s finally time for a well-deserved getaway, but how about your bonsai?
Imagine returning home from a nice vacation to discover your bonsai completely dry and gloomy. In this article, we’ll show you how you can take care of your bonsai while on vacation so you will not experience an unpleasant surprise when you return home.
Taking Care of Your Bonsai While on Vacation
If properly sustained and cared for, bonsai plants can maintain their beauty and health.
We must give them all of their needs, including enough attention for their growth.
Developing a habit is necessary to keep them hydrated and blossoming. But what if you are not available? Who will look after your bonsai throughout the much-awaited holiday?
Bonsai trees are a time-consuming pastime that demands daily attention for the duration of the year. You will be needing a technique to care for your bonsai trees while you are away unless you want to take them on vacation with you.
Taking a vacation in the winter season is safer than in the summer because the bonsai tree requires less care, but who wants a vacation in the winter? Here are some of the tips you can do to enjoy your trip without bonsai problems in mind!
Getting Help from a Caring Service
The bonsai community is a friendly one, with people looking out for one another and assisting when they can. It may be worthwhile to consider leaving your bonsai tree collection at a nursery while you are on a vacation. While not every nursery will do this, there are a few that will for a nominal cost.
Also, although this option is not free, you can rest assured that your cherished bonsai is being maintained by someone who, confidently, knows what they are doing. Before you travel on vacation, check with all of the local garden centers and nurseries in your area to see if this is a service they can provide.
Making Use of Your Resources
People often ignore the possibility of having friends or relatives take care of their bonsai while they are away on vacation, but it can be a nice alternative. You will have to rely on them not to ignore or neglect any of the trees in your collection. It is highly recommended to guide them through the entire procedure a few days before you leave on vacation so they are aware of all the details, such as how much water to use and which trees require more watering.
As noted previously, bonsai tends to gather people together and has a really pleasant community feel to it. Having said that, it is worth getting engaged with local bonsai communities in your location, if you haven’t already, to see if they can help. Having someone do a favor for you will almost certainly require you to return the favor at some point, but if that doesn’t concern you, this is a wonderful choice.
The extra benefit of utilizing the local bonsai community is that these knowledgeable individuals may be able to detect health issues with your bonsai that you may have neglected, such as infections or the need for repotting.
Using Automated Watering Method
This is another viable alternative that many bonsai enthusiasts embrace. Setting up a sprinkler system on a schedule that sprays water when turned on is quite simple. Although it is straightforward to set up, it is not the best option unless you have no other choices. Put all of your bonsai trees in a circle around the sprinkler system to ensure an even distribution of the water.
The only thing you should keep in mind is that the one serious flaw is the fact that not all trees require the same quantity of watering at the same time, making it far less attentive than having each tree individually cared for. Although not the best alternative, if you are going away for a few days or a week, this is still a feasible alternative. Just make sure your tree is not in direct sunlight, since this, along with the lack of specific maintenance, will quickly dry out the soil.
Planting the Bonsai Pot into the Ground
This strategy is the poorest of the group; you’d be far better off exhausting the first three choices before considering this one. You can plant your bonsai pot in your landscape, ideally in the shadiest spot you can find. Make a hole deep enough for the bonsai pot to be leveled with the ground soil; the size of the hole will depend on the size of your bonsai pot. Hydrate the bonsai tree and the soil near the pot once it is in the ground.
When doing this method, pests and other creatures may damage your bonsai tree, which is a serious problem. To reduce the impact of insects or pests, the use of pellets is highly recommended. Effective watering system may also help. To keep the water content of the bonsai as high as possible, construct a poly framework around it. You might get two weeks out of this procedure if done correctly and in ideal conditions, but it is absolutely not the safest option for the bonsai. If you’re doing this in the summer, you’ll have to be much more careful because the sun will heat up the poly tent, causing the tree to dry up even faster.
Wrapping Up
Adequate care is essential for the life and growth of all bonsai plants.
If you are going on a vacation, you will need to figure out how to keep them alive and healthy. While you are away, you can still take care of your bonsai trees using any of the methods listed above. Except for the automated method, these are all cost-effective techniques that may be completed quickly and easily.
So, if you are planning a trip, make sure to consider these things to be stress-free for the following days before you return home safely!
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