Yes, It's cold.

[Raging Bull]

As a lot of people are talking about the weather at the moment, and as it relates to their tree maintenance I thought I'd start a new thread. Mel wrote that we're having it cold even here in Qld. I'll second that, on the Gold Coast it was the coldest June temp. on record this morning. This prompted me to root prune, repot and defoliate the largest of my chinese elms. They don't even turn colour here in autumn and unless manually defoliated the don't drop their leaves either. The trident maples are a bit better, giving me a few coloured leaves and dropping some, so in the next week or two I'll be attempting to put together a trident forest. I obtained seedlings from shibui a year ago and if I hadn't pruned them in summer they'd be a metre or more high by now.
The poincianas have lost their leaves too, so it will be interesting to see if they will ramify of their own or need help in the way of pruning.
Some natives I've dug over the last couple of weeks seem to be doing well, incuding a very small coastal banksia and a decent sized casuarina.
Cheers, Frank.

[melbrackstone]

heh, after root pruning my large Chinese Elm *one* of the leaves has gone bronze! The rest are still green as... oh well..

I also got some colour from my tridents this year! A nice change.

This cool weather makes me wonder if we should get a heater of some sort....

[TimS]

Here in Melbourne we had a ridiculously hot Autumn so colour was crap or non-existent. My Chinese Elm has turned colour and started dropping leaves, but Cork Bark Chinese Elm is only just starting to change colour, and my trident that has been stubbornly green until a week ago has got about half the leaves changing colour now.

I grew about 100 Eucalyptus from seed earlier in the year in a greenhouse, they have been out about a month and they are all still putting on growth despite the cold.

[Matthew]

-4.2 at my place this morning with a inch of frost and water froze to a depth of 12 inches . Trees are well and truly asleep atm.

[GavinG]

In Canberra, we know that winter has hit when the maximum temperature (Sunday 7degC) is lower than the Sydney minimum for the day... No vicious frosts here yet, but we know they're coming.

Frank, if you have to pull the leaves off your elm, it's not cold...

Gavin