aparsons117
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New to Indoor bonsai need help!!!!

Hi everyone, I'm a university student living in St.John's Newfoundland. I was recently given a ficus Benjamina bonsai as a gift and I love it. But I had to look online immediately to find how to care for it and I thought I was doing a decent job until now. He is losing leaves rapidly, and it only came to my mind that since I've gotten it on February 14th I didn't give it any fertilizer which is I believe a nesscessity? I also don't know how to water it overly well I usually fill the bottom tray when it is empty and the occasionally dribble water over the top rocks. I will include pictures of before and up to now thanks in advance for your advice

Before
DSC_0128.JPG


Now
DSC_0181.JPG

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rainbowgardener
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No, no, watering all wrong. Putting water in the bottom tray sounds like it spends periods of time sitting in water. Not good.

To start with those rocks need to come off. You can't see / touch your soil, so hard to know when to water. Take the rocks off, pour water on the soil from the top until it runs freely out the drain hole (best to do this in the sink). Wait until it quits draining and do it again. Wait until it quits draining and then put it back.

Put those rocks you took off into the bottom tray. It should be a humidity tray. That means there is water in the bottom of the tray, but there's enough pebbles so that the bottom of your bonsai pot sits OVER not in the water. It just helps to humidify the air around your little tree a bit.

After it has been thoroughly watered as above, don't water again until a chopstick inserted part way into the soil, shows that the top soil is drying out.

And yes, bonsai need to be fertilized, with a dilute fertilizer solution at least once a month. It is in such a tiny amount of soil, the nutrients must be very depleted from that.

imafan26
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The ficus may also be losing leaves becaude of the change in light. Ficus are infamous for doing that.

aparsons117
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One thing I should mention is that I was told the rocks are on top of the soil in order to keep the humidity in the soil, but if you think this is right I will move the rocks to the bottom tray and water as such. With the leaves going/gone with the tree Die? And any recommendations on fertilizer and how to fertilize?

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Gnome
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aparsons117,
One thing I should mention is that I was told the rocks are on top of the soil in order to keep the humidity in the soil, but if you think this is right I will move the rocks
Often rocks are glued on top in order to aid shipping. If this is the case they really should be removed. If they are loose they are not such a problem but still can interfere with your determining when to water.

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rainbowgardener
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The bad news about ficus is that it is sensitive and prone to dropping all its leaves when conditions are not right or change too much.

The good news about ficus is that since it is prone to dropping leaves, it also readily grows them back. They can come back from being almost totally defoliated. It should be fine.

Use any good balanced liquid fertilizer and dilute it twice as much as the label suggests. Fertilizing is important for bonsai.

dowens
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I had like 5 bonsai trees and I did everything that was said in the books and on the Internet. But my trees died anyway. I stopped buying them because I didn’t want to kill another plant. I did all you guys said here and it still didn’t work. I hope your bonsai tree will grow big and nice:)

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rainbowgardener
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sorry you had so much trouble; hope parsons has better results.

If you decide to try one more time, come back here. Show us your tree when you get it and as it goes along, if it starts having any problems, maybe we can help you have more success. There is always a reason why a tree dies -- either the conditions aren't close enough to what it needs, or there are diseases or pests.

Were the trees you had also ficus? I had a non-bonsai ficus in a huge pot. I grew it from tiny to taller than I am. I found it quite resilient and hard to kill, even though I didn't always give it the best care.

aparsons117
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I did what you said and I should that the bottom of tray has some sort of mesh over the hole? Is this normal? I drained it twice like you said and will get some liquid fertilizer soon.

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rainbowgardener
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It's fine as long as the water still drains through easily. Just keeps soil from falling out your drain hole.



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