Creyes319
Newly Registered
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Mar 14, 2015 8:55 am

HELP WITH MY BONSAI :,(

:cry: I am in NJ preparing for spring? Is my bonsai still alive??????? I have potted my bonsaid in a bigger pot for the winter with mulch around and on top it is this color it feels brittle is it supposed to be this why I am sorry I got this as a gift in june its my firts winter also I did a scratch test is color is beige :(
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tomc
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Posts: 2661
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2011 2:52 am
Location: SE-OH USA Zone 6-A

Its a juniper. Juniper are propagated by cutting and start out with very small root system which make them particularly unsuited for heated dry indoors residence.

My monitor is old, and your photographs are quite dark. If that juniper is as brown and toasty as it looks to be, your next gardening lesson will be to lay it to its final rest.

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rainbowgardener
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Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
Location: TN/GA 7b

You did two posts about this same bonsai, one in Introductions. In that one you gave better information, including that the juniper had (quite properly) been outdoors all winter and that you are in NJ.

Junipers are extremely cold hardy, but as tom says yours when you got it was probably a recently potted up cutting, with hardly any root system. As such, it may have needed more winter protection and care than it got.

Junipers tend to die in slow motion from the inside out. By the time it is showing significant browning, it is likely a goner. :( If you want to start over, spring would be a good time, so that it has more time to get well established before winter. Maybe spend a little more to get a juniper that is more than just a cutting.

you are looking for trunk diameter, root system. Don't worry so much about the styling, over the years you can change all that:

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I think the best way, certainly cheapest if you are on a budget, is to look for an actual juniper tree/shrub and then work on cutting down to bonsai size, rather than trying to grow out a baby cutting. You can get a very nice little pre- bonsai juniper in a nursery pot for $10 or so.

https://www.google.com/search?q=juniper ... 4473033685

Here's a couple articles about creating juniper bonsai from nursery stock. You learn a lot more about bonsai technique that way.

https://www.bonsaimary.com/juniper-bonsai-tree.html
https://www.bonsaiforbeginners.com/make_a_bonsai.html

Welcome to the Forum! I'm sure if you get yourself a new bonsai or pre-bonsai tree, people here will be glad to give you some help with maintaining and working on it.



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