JennGott
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Please help me ID my bonsai

Hi, so when I came home from school my mom had this waiting for me:
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She said she bought it from a man in a truck roadside, and that he said to use Triple 17 fertilizer once every 3 months, and water it once a day. If you could tell me please what type of bonsai this is, and how to take care of it.

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rainbowgardener
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Location: TN/GA 7b

Lucky you!

It is a jade plant.

Do NOT water it once a day. Water it when it needs it.

Read the bonsai growing tips here:

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/vi ... =36&t=1479

and use the chopstick method it describes to know when it needs watering.

When you do water it, water it thoroughly, so all the soil has been moistened.

It's a little hard to tell from the picture, but I'm thinking the soil it is in is more heavy/dense/organic/ moisture holding than you really want. At some point you will need to re pot it in to more free draining bonsai soil.

JennGott
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thanks a lot!

tomc
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Its a jade. A succulent, and not really a bonsai though it can be trained into an informal upright shape.

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rainbowgardener
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It's not "really" a bonsai, because bonsai means tree-in-a-pot and jade plant isn't actually a tree. However, like many other non-trees (azalea, wisteria, boxwood, burning bush, schefflera, tamarind, bouganvillea, camillia, etc), it is often treated as a bonsai.

If it looks like a duck....



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