Heathcote Botanical staff members and volunteers are taking drastic but necessary measures to protect their rare and nationally recognized bonsai collection.In Fort Pierce, all of their plants are under a tent with a heater and covered in frost cloth.Since Friday, they have been wrapping and insulating hundreds of the delicate Japanese bonsai and other tropical plants. The protective process also includes insulating root systems, covering canopies, securing climate barriers and monitoring temperatures throughout the night. Bonsai is the Japanese art of growing and shaping miniature trees in containers for more than a thousand years.Heathcote Botanical Gardens CEO Vicky Hiyos said they have the largest public display of bonsai in the United States in the James J. SmithBonsai Gallery. They’re doing everything they can to protect them since they’ve had some of these trees for generations. Hiyos said this is the biggest freeze she’s seen in years, and they’ve only covered up the plants to this extent twice.“I’ve been here for four years, but we had this probably about two years ago, but not to this great depth,” she said. “We were not able to put all the bonsai into the pavilion and cover it, but we did have heaters going, and we have individual clocks. When you walk through, it looks like a bunch of ghost figures hanging out in the bones area.”Experts say if you don’t have a portable tropical plant heater, you should move them to a warmer area. If not, try covering them with some type of fleece.
FORT PIERCE, Fla. —
Heathcote Botanical staff members and volunteers are taking drastic but necessary measures to protect their rare and nationally recognized bonsai collection.
In Fort Pierce, all of their plants are under a tent with a heater and covered in frost cloth.
Since Friday, they have been wrapping and insulating hundreds of the delicate Japanese bonsai and other tropical plants. The protective process also includes insulating root systems, covering canopies, securing climate barriers and monitoring temperatures throughout the night.
Bonsai is the Japanese art of growing and shaping miniature trees in containers for more than a thousand years.
Heathcote Botanical Gardens CEO Vicky Hiyos said they have the largest public display of bonsai in the United States in the James J. SmithBonsai Gallery.
They’re doing everything they can to protect them since they’ve had some of these trees for generations.
Hiyos said this is the biggest freeze she’s seen in years, and they’ve only covered up the plants to this extent twice.
“I’ve been here for four years, but we had this probably about two years ago, but not to this great depth,” she said. “We were not able to put all the bonsai into the pavilion and cover it, but we did have heaters going, and we have individual clocks. When you walk through, it looks like a bunch of ghost figures hanging out in the bones area.”
Experts say if you don’t have a portable tropical plant heater, you should move them to a warmer area. If not, try covering them with some type of fleece.
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