Hello,
I bought this from a bonsai nursery a few weeks ago and repotted it 2 weeks ago and did some light trimming and root prunning. I'm noticing it's rapidly turning brown. What can I do? I've moved it from full sun to afternoon sun and now morning sun . . .
[img]https://i529.photobucket.com/albums/dd340/malagabee/CIMG2514.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i529.photobucket.com/albums/dd340/malagabee/CIMG2533.jpg[/img]
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TomM
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I think that one problem you have is that you're in a hurry to make bonsai out of everything you bring home from your shopping experiences, and no offense is meant. We all go through that stage. Some of us never stop doing that. The trees/plants/shrubs never get a chance to adapt to their location and immediately they are stressed out with repotting, pruning, etc. Then they get moved to several locations looking for the right sun level. They sometimes die from all this stress.
I've finally 'gotten it' - what I've heard from the masters around me. I bring home something new and I - #1 do a whole lot of research on the plant I bought. #2 let it rest. #3 Find the best location based on my research and advice from my masters. #4 do nothing stressful for at least one year and then only if it is healthy and growing well. SLOW DOWN. Bonsai is not about instant anything. It will take years...... So start by doing little or nothing except to first learn all you can about what you have or intend to get.
I've finally 'gotten it' - what I've heard from the masters around me. I bring home something new and I - #1 do a whole lot of research on the plant I bought. #2 let it rest. #3 Find the best location based on my research and advice from my masters. #4 do nothing stressful for at least one year and then only if it is healthy and growing well. SLOW DOWN. Bonsai is not about instant anything. It will take years...... So start by doing little or nothing except to first learn all you can about what you have or intend to get.
Last edited by TomM on Mon Jul 09, 2012 7:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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applestar
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I think regardless of ideal light, I would at this point, leave it in the morning light situation which is typically least harsh, though I would want earliest direct sun until say 10 or 11am.
Water carefully to minimize water stress -- especially right now. I would try to keep the roots cooler by placing the pot directly on the ground in the grass, but that's the non-bonsai, plain old gardening me talking. ALL my container plants sit in the grass during the summer.
Hopefully your tree will turn around. Find out the best way to overwinter it, and in spring, give it the best location to spend the full growing season.
Water carefully to minimize water stress -- especially right now. I would try to keep the roots cooler by placing the pot directly on the ground in the grass, but that's the non-bonsai, plain old gardening me talking. ALL my container plants sit in the grass during the summer.
Hopefully your tree will turn around. Find out the best way to overwinter it, and in spring, give it the best location to spend the full growing season.
Folks,
Thanks for your inputs and ideas to help revive it. I thought I had waited enough time before repotting it. There are very little info on this plant on the internet. Water under the bridge. To be fair if I wanted an instant bonsai I wouldn't buy a starter which will take a few years to a decade. Heck if I got access to forest and property I'd rather yamadori my materials so won't you just tell me to throw it in the garbage and be done with lol.
Thanks for your inputs and ideas to help revive it. I thought I had waited enough time before repotting it. There are very little info on this plant on the internet. Water under the bridge. To be fair if I wanted an instant bonsai I wouldn't buy a starter which will take a few years to a decade. Heck if I got access to forest and property I'd rather yamadori my materials so won't you just tell me to throw it in the garbage and be done with lol.
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applestar
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I realize you said this tongue-in-cheek, but seriously, that wouldn't be my recommendation. It's actually not easy keeping potted perennials, let alone woody shrubs and trees healthy year around when they are in roomy containers with plenty of roots. Trimmed of roots and stuffed into smaller containers is stressful for the plant -- in fact that's what you are counting on -- so the shrubs and trees grow the secondary roots to support itself, and the upper foliage is kept from growing into full size.linlaoboo wrote:so won't you just tell me to throw it in the garbage and be done with lol.
But all that bonsai stuff is secondary to learning the techniques and skills, and individual needs for keeping the plants healthy and able to cope with the stresses you give them -- with the "training."
As bonsai, the trees need even more careful tending in their shallow trays and with limited foliage -- and very narrow wiggle room for error.
If you don't have these skills, any trees you "yamadori" are just victims doomed to die, and any bonsai potential they had will be lost.
So think of it as learning experience to bring this tree back to life. And I give you these advice with the best intentions at heart. I have always admired bonsai. I have various materials that I have potted up, but I have yet to take the plunge to creating bonsai out of them because I don't know if I can keep them alive that way.
applestar,
the tongue and cheek wasn't directed at you since you've given me constructive advise which is helpful instead of a lecture on what you should've have done which is legacy and not forward looking. Anyways, I removed some brown foliage and will hope for the best and watch closely.
With your horticultural knowledge I'm sure you can succeed in growing bonsai. Look at it this way, many yamadori trees will never make it but it doesn't stop people from trying and learning from each experience.
the tongue and cheek wasn't directed at you since you've given me constructive advise which is helpful instead of a lecture on what you should've have done which is legacy and not forward looking. Anyways, I removed some brown foliage and will hope for the best and watch closely.
With your horticultural knowledge I'm sure you can succeed in growing bonsai. Look at it this way, many yamadori trees will never make it but it doesn't stop people from trying and learning from each experience.
Just to play devil's advocate (on both sides) here...
This particular tree shows zero promise as a bonsai now, or 5-10 years down the road. From someone who has been involved in bonsai for quite some time, this is readily evident.
However, every beginner needs to learn, and some of the best learning is by example. Seriously, if you need to learn to be able to keep a species ALIVE as a "bonsai", which is better to learn on, a $5-20 "start" or a $100+ "specimen"? Me, I go for the former (even still) unless I'm confident I can keep it alive. As well, larger stock material may be well past the point of being useful for small shohin, which I prefer, so "sticks in pots" may be your only option.
Now, when you're in a BONSAI forum and asking for advice on a particular tree, you do have to expect that that advice is going to have a bonsai slant. So, try not to get too upset if an experienced grower tells you that you made a bad purchase and will be wasting your time growing it as bonsai. It's probably true.
HOWEVER, if your intent is to learn how to keep the species or even just to use it for wire training, prune training, etc., hey, ignore the advice and where it belongs (as a potential bonsai) and follow your path.
The learn as you go path that ignores experienced advice is a long one. But it's also (I think) far more rewarding and offers a lot more knowledge, information, and experience, good and bad.
This particular tree shows zero promise as a bonsai now, or 5-10 years down the road. From someone who has been involved in bonsai for quite some time, this is readily evident.
However, every beginner needs to learn, and some of the best learning is by example. Seriously, if you need to learn to be able to keep a species ALIVE as a "bonsai", which is better to learn on, a $5-20 "start" or a $100+ "specimen"? Me, I go for the former (even still) unless I'm confident I can keep it alive. As well, larger stock material may be well past the point of being useful for small shohin, which I prefer, so "sticks in pots" may be your only option.
Now, when you're in a BONSAI forum and asking for advice on a particular tree, you do have to expect that that advice is going to have a bonsai slant. So, try not to get too upset if an experienced grower tells you that you made a bad purchase and will be wasting your time growing it as bonsai. It's probably true.
HOWEVER, if your intent is to learn how to keep the species or even just to use it for wire training, prune training, etc., hey, ignore the advice and where it belongs (as a potential bonsai) and follow your path.
The learn as you go path that ignores experienced advice is a long one. But it's also (I think) far more rewarding and offers a lot more knowledge, information, and experience, good and bad.
Understood. Thanks for your honesty. This is my 1st attempt in this kind of tree and I'm doing my best to research it like I always do.
Kdodds, perhaps you guys have been considering yourselves experienced for too long and forgetting the fact people like me can't read between the lines. If the advice is given on a future tree then say that like you did. Re-read TomM's post and he didn't say I made a bad purchase or it'd be a waste of time growing it as a bonsai so no need to spin it for him. It works for a 10 year old not a 40 yr old guy lol. As I said I would have gladly accepted it if he had said what you said or to be more direct, throw it in the garbage. You must understand people didn't ask questions just to get an insult in a round about way without getting the advise they originally post for which is ways to help the current $10 plant, not some great Bonsai price winner you're all thinking. You wonder why a lot of people ask 1 question and never comes back. .. . hmmm. Bonsai should be a relaxing thing so to each his own.kdodds wrote:Just to play devil's advocate (on both sides) here...
This particular tree shows zero promise as a bonsai now, or 5-10 years down the road. From someone who has been involved in bonsai for quite some time, this is readily evident.
kdodds wrote:Now, when you're in a BONSAI forum and asking for advice on a particular tree, you do have to expect that that advice is going to have a bonsai slant. So, try not to get too upset if an experienced grower tells you that you made a bad purchase and will be wasting your time growing it as bonsai. It's probably true.
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gbhunter77
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He is not being mean just honest. Would you rather be told fake feel good comments. I take it as positive critique. Many of my trees have gotten shot down so I try again. I have improved because mistakes were pointed out to me not covered in sugar and spice. I have a few trees I grow just for me and my enjoyment nothing else. I have a few that show promise, but it will take a few years and if I prune,fertilize, keep it happy and protect it during the rough Michigan cold, I'll have a nice bonsai I can enter as a begginer and hope to win. Kdodds is very to the point. He's right I can see it myself, and I'm wet behind the ears. I can see it looks like a Christmas tree at best but that's just my opinion. Sorry if that sounds cold but is it not better to find out now the to drop 5 years then find out. I trashed tons of trees once my outlooked changed a bit. Some will go into a group planting and I will see how that works out. Kdodds is like a flight instructor I had, after a rough landing I would get the butt chewing of my life(I'm paying him mind you). I learned more from him than any other flight instructor than any other, I aced the exam and flight test, he was the best instructor on stuff but because he was honest 40% of his students dropped him, but the ones that stuck with it all passed not one failed. Sorry about the long winded response.
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gbhunter77
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I'm not quite sure how telling a person that their tree is going to useless as bonsai is insulting to them. Maybe the tree... but they don't have eyes or ears. 
I think today's thin-skinned America needs to stop and take a long, hard look at its low self-esteem, be affronted at everything current societal climate. It's not anyone here specifically, it's pervasive. Late 90s, early to mid 2000s, it was an air of deniability, plausible or not, that is now turning from "excuses for everything" to "anger at everything". It's a curious wave of wide-spread societal emotion. Swim against the current.
I think today's thin-skinned America needs to stop and take a long, hard look at its low self-esteem, be affronted at everything current societal climate. It's not anyone here specifically, it's pervasive. Late 90s, early to mid 2000s, it was an air of deniability, plausible or not, that is now turning from "excuses for everything" to "anger at everything". It's a curious wave of wide-spread societal emotion. Swim against the current. Hey boys and girls I'm glad Kdodds comments are directed at Americans which I'm not and I have to agree Americans are often full of themselves instead of being modest.
This tree's most likely demise was the trunk got split when I cut a thick tap root which is also connected to the main trunk.
FYI this tree by itself is nothing but a stick in a pot but a few young seedlings like this can be planted in group style to create a natural scenary. Something to consider, the place I bought it from has some good examples of these.
This tree's most likely demise was the trunk got split when I cut a thick tap root which is also connected to the main trunk.
FYI this tree by itself is nothing but a stick in a pot but a few young seedlings like this can be planted in group style to create a natural scenary. Something to consider, the place I bought it from has some good examples of these.
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rainbowgardener
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Stefanie - if what you are looking for is advice about your tree, you would be better off starting your own thread, with a picture of your tree, and information about where you are located and how you are keeping your tree (indoors, outdoors, sun exposure, soil type, etc). You will get much better help that way.