Gmelina is a tropical species but it becomes deciduous in colder weather, they drop their leaves every winter and the only die back i usually get is on the tips of newer branch’s from the previous season, and this is usually very minimal. I still protect them when it gets to freezing temps (we had quite a few nights with freezing temps here in NE Florida this winter). One thing I love about the new leaves on Gmelinas is the purple edges they get as they’re filling out. 2 winters ago I made a dumb decision to do a little experiment on one of my gmelinas that was roughly 10 years old, I left it outside all winter to see how it would hold up, come spring the tree was still alive but it never pushed new leaves out, it survived over a year with out having any leaves on it (to anyone wondering how I knew it was alive, I was scratching the bark and seeing if it was green underneath). As the tree started to die back I would make cuts to try and stop it and to see if it would push out new growth. This was futile, as it it ended up going to bonsai heaven and a lesson learned to put the gmelinas in the garage when it gets below 32 degrees. Over the years, I have always put my trees in the house or garage (garage is way better for the trees by the way) when we get freezing temps but doing the bonsai shuffle at 10pm on a work night in cold weather with 130+ trees takes some time.. I thought to my self, if I can leave some trees outside that’s one less trip I have to make. Lesson learned though!
by ExercisePopular7037
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