Shade Cloth: Not Just for Sun
We’ve talked before about shade cloth and its utility in protecting bonsai during hot summer weather. There’s one other protective measure that it provides, though…
Hail.
Hail of various sizes tends to start falling in the spring. Some is so small it was called ‘sleet’ where I grew up, diminutive ice balls around the size of sesame seeds, which cause no damage. Then you get into the small aduki beans which will begin marking leaves and knocking a few off. And finally there’s the great northern beans that can begin causing damage even to branches. (I’m leaving out the clementine-sized hail that might be worthy of hiding in a cellar.)
Normal shade cloth that you put up for sun definitely helps protect trees from damaging hail. Some folks simply put this up a bit early for that reason. There’s also speciality cloth called ‘hail netting’, which can greatly reduce damage and might be something to consider if you don’t need sun protection yet get frequent and damaging deluges of great northern bean-sized or larger hail.
More about setting up a structure to protect bonsai from sun or hail: https://crataegus.com/2015/09/16/building-a-metal-shadecloth-structure/
Michael Hagedorn 
6 Comments
never considered it for that purpose, but great thought… i enjoy building my shade structures out of driftwood i pick-up at the “lumber-shore” (LOL)…
while not as rock-solid as your metal one (3 little pigs ?) i do enjoy the way mine looks…
btw – i have heard that “where you come from” is madison wisconsin,… true ?
that would explain knowing about sleeeeet. 😦
kevin
Have some family in Wisconsin—but I never lived there, mostly time in Ithaca NY were the formative years…where sleet was the byword-
MichaelThought you may want to see your quote inApril issue #Bonsai Banter
Mary Miller http://www.BonsaiMary.com
From: Michael Hagedorn To: marycmiller@bellsouth.net Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2017 1:09 PM Subject: [New post] Shade Cloth: Not Just for Sun #yiv8241888201 a:hover {color:red;}#yiv8241888201 a {text-decoration:none;color:#0088cc;}#yiv8241888201 a.yiv8241888201primaryactionlink:link, #yiv8241888201 a.yiv8241888201primaryactionlink:visited {background-color:#2585B2;color:#fff;}#yiv8241888201 a.yiv8241888201primaryactionlink:hover, #yiv8241888201 a.yiv8241888201primaryactionlink:active {background-color:#11729E;color:#fff;}#yiv8241888201 WordPress.com | crataegus posted: “We’ve talked before about shade cloth and its utility in protecting bonsai during hot summer weather. There’s one other protective measure that it provides, though…Hail.Hail of various sizes tends to start falling in the spring. Some is so s” | |
We use shade cloth as protection from frosts too.
I’m a bit confuse, in your post summer care it said ” If you rarely get above the high eighties, shade cloth is unnecessary” isn’t Milwaukee average highest temp. 80F/27C rarely reaching 90F/32C ? Does UV index play part? I’m wondering if I need to protect my Japanese maples in particular.
Interesting subject, great website. Thank you.
Ooops my comment was for the post ”Building a Metal Shade Cloth Structure” I do apologize for the mess 😦