Our very own Jill Simmons (secretary/treasurer) was featured by the American Bonsai Society (ABS) in their December 2014 newsletter. An excerpt from Jill below.

Over wintering trees—A very unique story
We live on a houseboat year round, up here in Massachusetts by Cape Cod (but not on the cape!). It is really expensive to put up the number of trees in a greenhouse and I sure can’t depend upon friends to help water and care for them. I have no where to mulch them or bury them, and of course the winds howl all around the boat all winter. Sounds bad!

My system is to water them, drench them in a fungicide and a pesticide just to make sure, and then in late December or around New Years Day put them down in the barge with absolutely no light. I keep a small fan circulating air but not directly blowing on them. Apparently they love the nap because when I bring them up in March, they are nice and green. Once every couple of weeks I check them for water needs, but they only rarely need water. At the most it might get to 40-45 degrees if we get a warm spell, and never goes below freezing. I’ve been doing this for about 12 years. Oftentimes I am away for a couple of weeks at a time and they don’t mind!

That is my solution for overwintering my northern trees. My tropicals go to Florida to stay at our place in Key Largo.