Maples waking up too early

Greetings everyone,
I have an Amur Maple and a Butterfly Maple in my (extremely) low heated sunroom. The area the trees are in goes as low as 30 F. Now that the sun is getting stronger here in northern Vermont, the temps during the day go up to mostly the low 40's F. I've started to notice the Amur swelling pretting good, and the Butterfly is just starting to show a slight swelling.

With the fact that these temps are the best that can be done in this area and the only other area I have is my unheated garage (temps there were around 20F last night).

Does anyone have any thoughts?

Thanks
Jay

It's too late to go much colder, once the buds swell you have to protect them from freezing. Longer darkness and less heat will help delay them some, if you can shade the windows. Unfortunately if they do sprout you will end up with leggy growth since they won't be able to go outside for a while yet.

We see some of that here now with Japanese and Vine Maples, buds starting to swell after just a few days in the low 50s. Hard to believe it was 10F just 3 weeks ago.

I just finished moving a bunch of trees out of the unheated basement...it was 15F Wed night, and will be 72F this weekend!

Just to show how unpredictable winter is, we were close to 50 yesterday and this morning it's 30 with 2" of snow and still falling.

You need to fill out your profile so we know where it is hat this occurred.

Jay:

Once they start growing, there is little to stop them short of also killing them. Reducing light to the extent that it does not also mean reducing heat will do nothing. Even the swelling buds are not light sensitive. At this stage, the trees are only heat sensitive.

So keep them as cool as you can, for that will slow down growth.

At one point, you will just have to give up and let them go. Then it is important that you give them as much light as possible, because the developing leaves and internodes need it to stay small and short. If frost threatens, bring them inside. That happens to me all the time, especially overnight. No problem, stick them back out into full sun the next morning, and they'll never miss a beat.

Thank you all for your thoughts.

Reiner, I will try and keep them as cool as possible without freezing them. Our temps here in Vermont are up and down so indoors is where they will be full time for now. As soon as I can assure a reasonable temp I'll do the dance and get them out for the sun and bring them in when the weather goes to cold.

Thanks again
Jay