Planting my Christmas Tree on Saint Patricks Day

The back story to my bonsai Christmas tree is short and simple. I bought this little pre-decorated tree in December to combine my interest in bonsai with my wish for a real Christmas tree that would fit in my small enough flat.

Many people think that the point of bonsai is to be able to keep trees indoors. However the reality is that most species of trees don't do well indoors. While there are species that do well indoors, they are the ones from warmer climates which are able to cope with the temperatures in modern heated homes. Trees which grow outdoors in the Irish climate can't survive indoors for very long so therefore my idea when I got this miniature Christmas tree was to 'return it to the wild' so to speak after the festive period was over.

In my case this involved a little bit of a trek. I don't have any outdoor space in my flat in Dublin. Not even a window sill. So when Christmas was over I brought the tree up to Donegal to my girlfriends home.

While the weather in Ireland in general isn't very good Donegal, and in particular the coastal area, gets its fair share of storms and we left the tree in a cool room to let it adjust a little rather than remove it from one extreme to another. The intention was to begin a transition process which would see the tree being slowly moved outside.

One thing led to another and the weeks became months etc, etc. Anyway three months later the tree was on the same window sill in the same room and I was looking at it and saw it was starting to go brown on one side. This obviously wasn't a good sign and since the weather was nice I decided it was time to plant the tree outside.

Since my intention is to keep the tree as a bonsai I have planted it in its pot in the ground. It should get all the nutrients it needs from the soil but it will still be in its pot.

I planted it on an unusually St Patrick's Day and the view from the garden was marvelous. Hopefully the little tree will settle into its surroundings. I'll check on its progress over the next few months.