Hi, first of congratulations for reviving your Coffee tree. It is pretty unusual for it to come back to life after spending two winters inside and no water for a couple of months. I'd say you tree is a tough survivor. The coffee tree (Gymnocladus dioica)is a tree that needs to be outside. It is ok to bring an outdoor bonsai inside for a day or two, but not longer, and not during the winter time. The trees in the temperate part of the countries are adapted to the winter resting period. By keeping it in the apartment for two winters you stressed this plant to its limits. I suspect that the green sprouts you are seeing right now are emergency shoots, basically a last ditch effort to get some photosynthesis going and to store some energy to make it past the next winter. I have a Japanese maple variety that also decided to sprout some fresh new leaves in late September. Not much you can do there but keep it watered and hope the tree will realize the error and move into fall mode soon. In terms of what to do at this point, that's tricky. Don't bring it back inside. Even a cool room in the house is mostly still too warm and you would definitely kill the seedling this time. I would leave the tree where it is for now, and hope that the dropping temperatures will signal it to stop growing and to prepare for winter. Keep it moist, but not waterlogged. Do you have the option of wintering it in a friends yard maybe? That would be the best option, to sink the tree with the pot into the ground, fill the ground soil back around the pot and cover the whole spot with potted tree with a good layer of mulch. If possible, choose a spot that doesn't get any sunlight and good protection form cold drying winds. Snow and rain are good, your tree needs those elements. If you don't have the option of sinking it into the ground you can also try to get a box or larger flower pot, fill it half styrofoam chips, sink your tree and pot into it and cover it with more styrofoam chips. Move it into a corner out of the sunlight and protect it from the cold drying winds. Check occasionally during the winter to make sure the soil is still moist. Water it if needed, but don't overdo it. Next spring, if it survived the winter, you need to carefully nurture it back to strength and health. Do some reading during winter on the care of over-wintering options for people with no yards and outdoor trees. Good luck with the plant, I hope it'll make it. Maybe others will give you their opinion and advice as well. Please let us know how it fared. Marc

Jonqpublic, and anyone else. We had lots of snow and cold, I didn't see a lot of ice on things, but I would say it was freezing temps sometimes, but then one day we had it slushy for one afternoon before the evening froze it all again. Today, I took pics of my 2 older Live oaks, the 2 year olds that I posted above. My most borderline plus some, plants. The bigger one has brown leaves, but they are still attached. The second tree has it's leaves still, and they are less brown, but still pretty ugly. I am happy they have done as good as they have in this horrible and NOT OVER winter. I took the second pic from the porch with the zoom, but with the snow you can see it good enough. After today we will be getting single digits at night and 20's in the day for the next 3 days/nights. Then 20's and 30's after . I would say this winter makes me say zone 6 is fine for these Live oak "late drop". If they last the rest of the winter, which I think they will.

What beautiful pictures! Thanks for sharing. Ricketts Glen?

bill, if you're still following this thread... does the Bridge Deflectolator for natural slate mean the thin slate tile, too? The ones I was looking at don't seem to be all that much thicker than regular ceramic floor tiles. Are they just that much denser/heavier even at the same thickness? BTW, I was just reading a thread on the bathroom forum where you mentioned the Mercer tiles you got to work with. I have been carrying around some gorgeous mid-century Danish art tiles for about 10 years, thinking I ought to do something with them. Every time I have a cool project (like the fireplace surround or baths in our current house) I think I will use them, but then I think it would be such a shame to leave them in the house for the next owner who might not care about them, so I don't!! Maybe I need to make a wall hanging like you mentioned... We also had a table with beautiful Natzler tiles at one time. Got offered too much $$ for it though, so it is gone now :(