Dear Liza,
About a month ago I told you about my bonsai pot, which I call The Hundred Acre Wood, getting all its leaves droopy because of the smoke from the forest fires nearby. They hadn’t changed color for fall, their leaves had simply wilted.
The Hundred Acre Wood is only a few years old, which is very young for a bonsai. The ones you see in the Japanese Garden are a hundred years old or more, being taken care of by skilled, devoted gardeners. Mine is just a baby!
I was even more worried when all the leaves shriveled. Was my tiny forest dead? How were other trees reacting? I decided to put it back out on the patio once the air quality was back to normal, and wait for spring.
Well, I didn’t have to wait that long! My confused birches are sprouting new leaves as though it was spring already. Not all of them, but two of the five, and now I don’t know what to think.
Did the smokey darkness put them into an early hibernation, and have they now moved past their imagined winter into next spring already? Has anyone else heard of this smoke induced dormancy?
As always, with bonsai, we will practice patience. We will wait and see.
Love,
Grandma Judy
Dear Liza 
Birches? You mentioned birches so, do you have those as well? You weren’t referring to the Bonsai where are you? I’m thoroughly confused now but I’m glad whatever is in the pot is coming back to life.
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Yes, most of the trees in my bonsai are birches… the seeds fell into a pot my first year in Portland and I have adopted them.
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