If they are, allegedly, hardy to zone 5 then I would think planting them in the ground should be sufficient in most cases. It might be worthwhile to shelter anything that hasn't developed much of a root system yet to keep the wind from drying them out (if they are deciduous then it really doesn't matter how deep the snow gets.) Actually lots of snow would make a good natural shelter for your cuttings, just as long as you can find them in the spring ;)

Hi. You've (unknowingly of course) made the classic newbie mistake in bonsai. You bought a "mall-sai" (sold by the thousands in malls nearby) from a roadside vendor who seemed so knowledgable. 1) He was no more knowledgable than your puppy, except in appearing to be so, working on the Karate Kid image of a bonsai expert, 2) if you keep a juniper 'well-watered' (never mind indoors) and "out of direct sunlight", you'll have a totally dead tree in about 5 mins. Allow more of the crappy, water retaining, peat filled potting soil it came in to dry than less of it between (good) waterings from the top, not by immersion in the sink, and give it lots and lots of good light all day long if possible (dorms are not noted for having same). Every species is different, so what you read about dormancy MAY be true for some trees in some climates for some time, but not necessarily all, BTW, but in any case, yours obviously won't get any so there's no point in going into it now. It's unlikely your tree will survive for long in that mix (trust me, it's crappy) and even if you were to peel off the layer of glued on pebbles on top (or is there miraculously not one of those - Wal-Mart's full of them) so you could judge wetness, etc., it wouldn't help much as your tree's not going to get the other conditions (air circulation, humidity - and don't go spraying it though please - etc. etc.) it needs indoors. Also BTW, the older trees that guy had are likely only l0-15 yrs old and they'd be the ones to shell out $20 for, not a '3 yr old' (more likely 2). Chalk this one up to experience and if you really want to get into bonsai, find a local club to join before spending another cent, as they can guide you as to what and when to look for and how to care for them (and if your environment's suitable) properly. I suggest you wait til you're out of the whole dorm situation first, though, as even tropicals (the only trees that can be grown inside) will have major light and humidity issues there. So sorry to sound so cynical and down, but yours is the oldest story in the book and is played out all day long all over the world - China cranks out millions of what you got every day, which is really more of a cutting, or stick-in-a-pot, and it's chances of every becoming a 'bonsai' are pretty thin.

Hi moochinka.. First of all I have not ignored a cow dung thing u said.. But I just thought it won't be a good idea to immediately transplant the tree into new medium.. Because already it is in shock of severe root pruning.. Right now it has just started to settle in this pot... After some time I will be transplanting that into proper bonsai potting soil.. And I am from village in India.. None of bonsai material is available here... I would definitely join some hands on course if my profession allows me to do so.. One more thing I would like to share.. Though my plant is not proper bonsai it's a immense pleasure to see the new growth..!

A huge number of hobby growers (almost all) are almost hardwired to think that the only way to grow is to buy a bag of whatever potting soil has the most outlandish promises on the bag, put their plants in it, water often enough to keep the soil nice & soggy, and hope they grow. When I started at bonsai, I was trying to grow in topsoil, so uninformed was I. When I finally figured things out and started talking about soils like the 5:1:1 and gritty mixes on these fora, you might have thought I was suggesting people trade their firstborns instead of the potting soils they were used to growing in. It was that much of an uphill battle trying to convince growers that saturated soils and watering intervals measured in weeks instead of days are not your plants' friends. It's been fascinating watching interest in things like structure, porosity, soil saturation, perched water tables, soil components, and all the other physical aspects of container media move from nearly total obscurity in all but academic circles and perhaps the professional growers whose livelihoods depended on the info, into the mainstream. Still, more than 95% of hobby growers are still banging their heads against a wall & hoping that luck WILL carry the day and reward them with a plant they can be happy with. It can't be too much longer before the people who write what is consumed by hobby growers catch on and start talking in more realistic terms about how much sway root health has on the o/a growing experience of everyone. The bonsai community has always almost innately understood the concept that drives water retention because of the shallow pots used, but the information just never made the transition from the bonsai community to conventional container culture. In a similar vein, there are dozens if not hundreds of techniques used perfunctorily by the bonsai scribe that can also be used with not only simple, but maybe even astounding effectiveness when applied to plants grown in conventional container culture. What is truly shocking to me is the often vehement refutation of the suggestion that the same techniques that work on bonsai will work just as well on potted trees and other plants. Some people are so closed in mind they cannot allow that a bonsai technique might be used anywhere where there are not one or more bonsai within view and Japanese music playing in the background, often suggesting that the bonsai practitioner can't know what (s)he's talking about when discussing other plants because, "All you do is practice bonsai, and these aren't bonsai." Well, that turned out to be more musing than I'd intended. I guess I'll go prune/wire another tree. I just finished a rewire and repruning of a sort of mother/daughter Ficus retusa I've had for a while but never really did much with. Al