Snow Rose help needed

[Ian]

I've had my Snow Rose for 10 months and generally water it every 2 days and fertilize it twice a month. It is approximately 13 years old and had 6 years in training. It is about 11 inches high from the root base/pot rim. The pot is a 6" by 8" oval. Lately it seems like all the leaves are dying rapidly, although there are new leaves, they are remaining very small, this makes the tree appear as if it's experiencing 'Fall'. It also seems that the soil dries out a lot quicker now.

Other features are: a kind of moss always covered the top soil, and recently the weeds had almost covered the complete surface area of top soil - I removed most of it. What am I doing wrong? does this plant need repotting?

[opabinia51]

You can gingerly pull the plant out of the pot and see if the root ball takes up the entire pot. If so, some root pruning may be in order and a new, larger pot. Is it absolutely necessary to be watering the plant every two days? You may be over watering your plant and drowning the roots.
A good way to test to see if the dee soil in your pot is wet is to take a wooden skewer and push it through the soil. If the skewer is wet, the plant does not need to be watered.

Hope this helps.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Repotting is definitely the problem, along with those weeds. Both conditions are not leaving room for water in the pot, the weeds are competing for what is there, and the tree is starting to show it.

Do not repot now; wait until spring. But do some weeding and water a bit more than seems necessary to get the tree through until then...

Scott

[Ian]

Thanks Scott, I will gently remove more weeds and follow the repotting guides to repot in spring. Is there a specific soil I need? What about sunlight ... I recently placed the pot at a window where it can have more hours of direct sunlight.

'opabinia51' suggested I pull the plant out to see if the root ball takes up the entire pot, and if so prune some roots. What is the best way to prune the roots? While doing some reading from the site, it was reccommended that only one activity 'care' should be done at a time, so maybe I can prune some roots now and repot in spring - do you think this is good?

Regards,

Ian

Repotting is definitely the problem, along with those weeds. Both conditions are not leaving room for water in the pot, the weeds are competing for what is there, and the tree is starting to show it.

Do not repot now; wait until spring. But do some weeding and water a bit more than seems necessary to get the tree through until then...

Scott

[The Helpful Gardener]

Yeah, serissa's need a lot more organic than others, but it needs to drain freely. I'd go 60% screened pine bark, 20% screened peat and 20%screened sand (screening the fines from all).

NO root pruning until spring! Those are still feeding the plant until then, so leave them be. And remember the old addage "As goes the top, so goes the bottom; as goes the bottom so goes the top." If you do a job of cutting one, cut the other too (the trick is in balancing so both recover equally well. When in doubt, move slowly... )

Scott