My name is Diana and I'm from New York. I own a Chinese Elm tree who is 6 years old but I've only had it since November '14, and is very dear to me. I currently have her indoors since it is too cold outside and barely any sunlight to be put next to the window. I make sure that her soil is always moist and that she gets as much light indoors as possible. She grew new branches and was very green and looked very healthy about two nights ago and even before that she never showed any signs of 'dryness' nor any leaves were falling off or anything until now. When I arrived home I could'nt help but notice that my bonsai looked very dry and weak. I don't know whats going on and so I'm hoping to hear some feedbacks from anyone who has had this experience or any idea...? Thank you so much!
*P.S I live in an apt that has a heater and sometimes it gets pretty dry and humid in my room but I always keep the window open so that the temp is nice and cool but not tooo cold.
Wow! Chinese elms are pretty fussy and we frequently get people writing in here to say their CE bonsai is dropping leaves. But to go from healthy to what it looks like now in two days is very fast! Are you sure it wasn't starting to have some trouble and you just didn't notice for awhile? It always helps to tell us where you are located.
You might need to tell us more about "I make sure the soil is always moist." In general, bonsai trees need to dry out a little bit between waterings. To start with you need to get the layer of pebbles off. Slows down air and water circulation and makes it more difficult to tell when to water. With the pebbles off, get a wooden chopstick and stick it a couple inches in to the soil and leave it for ten minutes (or half an hour or all the time). When you pull the chopstick out, if it is dark and moist, your soil is moist and you should not water. If the chopstick is dry, the soil is dry and you should water.
You have the tree sitting on a humidity tray, which is good, but it looks like it is actually in the tray, which is not good. The idea of the humidity tray is to put humidity into the AIR around the tree, not into the soil. If the tree/ soil actually sits in water in the tray, then it is getting waterlogged and that is likely the problem. You need to put those pebbles in the tray so the pot sits on them. Be sure any water in the tray does not touch the bottom of the pot where it can be wicked up in to the soil.
Otherwise Chinese Elm bonsais are a little confusing. In general there are either temperate deciduous trees that drop their leaves in the fall and go dormant or tropical evergreen trees that keep their leaves and grow year around. Temperate deciduous trees need to stay outside in the winter and be allowed to go dormant. Tropical evergreens are better for indoor bonsai and keep their leaves and grow most of the year. However, Chinese elms are kind of in the middle, being a subtropical tree. Some people keep them as indoor bonsai and some people treat them more as temperate trees. The cool air and lack of light may just have triggered your tree in to dormancy. At this point, I would just let it go dormant and rest for a bit. Move it to the coolest indoor spot you have. Don't worry about providing any supplemental light, water very rarely and do NOT fertilize. Just let it rest for 6-8 weeks. Then you can bring it back out in to light and warmth and more regular watering and let it wake up. Once it is growing again start fertilizing gently.
