Bonsai Problems

Discussion in 'Gymnosperms (incl. Conifers)' started by rodomxoz, Dec 27, 2006.

  1. rodomxoz

    rodomxoz Member

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    Hello again

    I posted a couple of weeks ago about my Lucky Bamboo. Since everyone seemed so helpful and with good expertise I decided now to try to write about my bonsai, my poor poor bonsai.

    I bought my bonsai (a Juniper variety one) in March. The tree was very young but healthy. The problem has been taking care if of it since then.

    The question (or problem) that I have is that if it is ok that its leaves keep drying up and either falling by themselves or easily falling (a small touch of the finger will get them to fall). I worry that this is not health behaviour for my bonsai!

    A little back history:
    - It has suffered two pot changes already. One was my choice and another one forced due to it getting a plague from bad soil.
    - I have tried watering it a lot every 3 days, a little every day and I haven't seen any big changes
    - I had it in my bedroom but once I saw it was getting dry I thought it might be overexposure to light (it would get sunlight during the day and electricity by night while I was still awake). I then moved it to a room with better morning sunlight and also doesn't receive light at night.

    Help me! I really like my bonsai and I try caring for it the best I can but I just don't have enough knowledge around to play with.
     
  2. rodomxoz

    rodomxoz Member

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    Oh and I forgot to mention. I am in Mexico City and currently in winter. Midday temperatures can reach a pleasant 15-18°C but night time can fall to 0 to 4°C. We've had about 3 nights already under cold front since November where I've seen the thermometer below 0°C. My home is an older home so we do not have central heating.
     
  3. Rima

    Rima Active Member

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    Oh dear, where to start! First, these junipers should not be sold in Mexico of all places, but when they are, should state in big bold letters that they are NOT indoor trees and must live outdoors all their lives to take advantage of any bit of cold they can in winter (so they can go dormant properly without being shocked from a warm house into the cold all at once one day), and so they can get proper air circulation and natural humidity. The 'care' tags stuck on them are usually stuck on all the other (different) trees regardless of anything else and should be ignored. Junipers need to have their soil go fairly dry between waterings, and then watered slowly so it sinks in properly, from above, til the water reaches the drain holes. They need to be in the sun all day - but in Mexico, the pots would need to be shaded from the sun so roots don't cook, and may need watering every day there. If at this point your tree's needles (not 'leaves') are brown and brittle, the tree has been dead a long time (they just look green for weeks even after they're gone) and I suggest if you want to get into bonsai to begin by reading everything you can first, and not spending money til you have an idea what to look for, what to do with it when you get it home, and how to keep it alive for a long time. Not your fault now though, and good luck in the future. So many people are making money on 'mall-sai' with mass marketing and couldn't care less what happens to the trees once they come home. The only trees that can be grown indoors are true tropicals, like ficus, and nothing else. Also if yours came with a layer of glued down pebbles, that would make watering properly impossible and should have been discarded on day one. Sorry!
     
  4. Rima

    Rima Active Member

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    Oh, and BWT, what is a 'plague from bad soil'? I'm very curious!
     
  5. rodomxoz

    rodomxoz Member

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    Well, first things first. Thanks Rima.

    It was hard for me to go water it and check on the state of the "needles" but indeed, today there were no green needles left and they fell off. I guess I must say good bye to my first bonsai :(

    Now before I go on a reading and study quest, be honest with me. Should I really get another bonsai in Mexico City? Or just change types? Winters in Mexico City can be very cold, averaging 0°C at night and lukewarm 15°C at day, while summers have temperatures of average 25-28°C. Now besides that there is a LONG rainy season of several months of almost daily rain during summer of medium intensity.

    As for the plague. Well, after the first soil/pot change, strange white worm like things (I suspect larva) started coming out of the soil.
     
  6. Rima

    Rima Active Member

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    OK, the worm things could be anything - did you use 'bagged' soil from a store, or from the ground outside? It's definitely best to make your own mix from components you find in a store, so you at least have some idea of what you're getting (and not getting!). Of course you can do bonsai in Mexico, but you'd be much better off to use either 'native' trees (whatever grows there naturally), or else tropicals like Ficus, etc. that you'd keep indoors in winter, though that does mean you may need to invest in special lighting, added humidity, and possibly heating, depending on how warm or not your house is kept in winter. I would say, however, that if you do go on your learning quest, YOU'LL be in a position to judge exactly what trees to use, indoors or out (there are plenty that would work there), and whether you want to commit to growing them.
     
  7. bioramani

    bioramani Member

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    This is from Bangalore, India. very much in the tropics at 13 Deg North. Various kinds of junipers grow quite well here. I have a couple in the garden and four five bonsai. No special care given. The soil is mostly mud, poorly draining. The coldest winter night temperature is 14 deg C. Possibly these are acclimatised cultivars.

    bioramani
     
  8. Rima

    Rima Active Member

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    Well, 'mostly mud' makes some kind of sense in your climate, otherwise you'd have to water the trees 3 times a day I imagine! One has to adapt to individual climates, but while Mexico is very warm most of the year, it can get quite cold on winter nights.
     
  9. terrestrial_man

    terrestrial_man Active Member 10 Years

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    Growing Junipers in Mexico should be no problem if you keep the plant outside, use a soil mix that is for cactus plants, overpot into large clay pots, let it have sun all morning and late afternoon giving only shade at midday . The very rainy season should be no problem to it. There are junipers that grow in the deserts of California and many species occur in Mexico. Mexico City should be quite ok for all of them if you give them the proper care. In addition to what I have stated above I would forget about those little plants in bonsai pots at the stores as they are too young for real bonsai. What you need to do is get a plant and grow it into a larger plant and then work on some root pruning and some branch pruning to get the plant to a smaller size and then perhaps one or two more such downsizing giving the plant time to recover and show you that it is growing again.
    Bonsai takes time and work-unless you spend mucho pesos for a bonsai then you are not getting a real bonsai. I recommend that you check google for images of bonsai and bonsai sites so you can learn more.
    Also keep in mind that there seems to be a different way of doing a bonsai when you ask someone else. What is important is that you do it your way!!! It is the result of a happy plant that will fit the generalized feeling of a bonsai that is what counts.
    Bueno suerte!

    PS: I do have a couple of juniper type plants and I water them very heavy but they drink alot of water!!! and so often I discover that they are dry again even after just watering the day before. When they are in active growth and in cactus mix water every other day or every three days and water until the water pour out of the bottom. Junipers are notorious for being heavy drinkers!!!
     
  10. jamkh

    jamkh Active Member

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    Bioramani
    I guess we both speak with the same wavelengths: tropicalizing temperate plants, In another post on the report of Dr Borchert with regard to the distribution of A Palmatum rubrum from latitude 45 degs N to 15 N in the Eastern America, he asserted, Quote: "Along the N-S gradient of increasing temperature the transition from a temperature-driven, deciduous phenology to a tropical, nearly evergreen phenology thus occurs within the same, wide-ranging temperate species.' Unquote.
    Thus you have achieved the same transition from a temperate evergreen specie to a sub-tropical specie. In my thread "Creating a tropical maple", the problem of acclimatizing any deciduous temperate specie is compounded by the "burnt out syndrome" (referring to it as BOS for short) exhibited by plants when deprived of their dormancy. With evergreen we have a very resilient long lived leaf system that can overcome BOS without apparent ill effects. In fact when any deciduous plant had acclimatised to the tropics, their growth vigor is heightened and size of trunk increased.
    I wonder whether your juniper goes to seeding and if it does I would be most interested to get hold of some to germinate and test out whether there is any evidence of genetic changes, which would make these seedlings easily adaptable to tropical environment. I wonder if we can't class your experience as another example of specieation which most readers would claim can only be achieved by natural selection.
     
    Last edited: Jan 1, 2007
  11. rodomxoz

    rodomxoz Member

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    Well, I will start looking at learning about inside bonsais, if there are any. Any suggestions on bonsais or online places to learn about them?
     
  12. terrestrial_man

    terrestrial_man Active Member 10 Years

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    I will pull my links later this day and post this evening. There are some outstanding links. Keep in mind. Know the environment you have! Then understand the environmental limitations that these plants are growing under and then you should have the basic framework in making a good stab at modifying your conditions to permit the plant to prosper.

    An aside: For the tropics I have learned that there are junipers that occur in Africa and apparent the genus occurs in many many regions of the earth. This would tend to indicate that the environmental conditions that allowed for widespread distribution changed over the eons to create these disjunct populations within the genus and also possibly indicating that genetically that the genus is far more flexible to environmental stress and variation than is known. More input from the tropical regions is a great plus in advancing knowledge in this area of investigation!!

    So please provide more info on your plants etc. Bioramani!!
     
  13. jamkh

    jamkh Active Member

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    Rodomxoz
    If you need links with info on the behavior of temperate plants in a tropical enviroment, kindly refer to the links provided by Daniel Mosquin under the thread "Creating a tropical maple" in the Botany and Horticulture Forum.
    It is easier to keep any temperate evergreen indoors than the deciduous species as the leaves are long lived and the plant suffer less from Burnt Out Syndrome (BOS). However keep a close tap on the humidity level indoors and test out the optimum humidity for an indoor juniper. I suspect it should be in the mid-range rather than the extremes. Also I suspect that a medium light intensity is the preferred form in order to combat BOS. It is all in the game of fine tuning on light and humidity until you hit the optimum conditions.
    Obviously Bioramani has acclimatized his few plants of Junipers to a sub-tropical enviroment (akin to specieation??) and I see no reason why you couldn't do the same. While natural selection takes eons to give rise to specieation, man can short circuit the process by his ingenuity. Not possible? as many readers will claim but what have you got to lose especially if you use rooted Juniper cuttings.
     
    Last edited: Jan 4, 2007
  14. terrestrial_man

    terrestrial_man Active Member 10 Years

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    Greetings All and a Happy New Year,
    aw it looks like that it is getting a little boggy around here. Well before it becomes a mire of mirth?? Here are the links I had promised. Forgive me for being remiss as I simply forgot about it as my mind has been on getting up a web journal on Psilotum which hopefully I will have online this evening.
    So here are all my bonsai links:

    http://www/bonsai4me.com/index.htm

    http://www.andyrutledge.com/worlds2/index.html

    http://www.bonsaimonk.com/index.html

    http://www.clovis-rdf.com/

    http://www.diggingdog.com/index.html

    http://davesgarden.com/gwd/

    http://koi-z-are-us.20m.com/

    http://www.evergreengardenworks.com/trunks.htm

    http://www.bonsaitalk.com/news/articles/000001/000187.htm

    http://japanesehomesandgardens.org/

    http://www.jgarden.org/plants.asp?ID=127

    http://www.shohin-europe.com/PHOTOS-japan2005kimura.html

    http://www.miniplantkingdom.com/

    http://www.mini-bonsai.com/indexe.html

    http://store.miniforest.com/

    Enjoy your visits!

    And do remember that while I may see green you may see blue!!
     
  15. jamkh

    jamkh Active Member

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    Rodomxoz
    Just out of curiosity, are you staying in a condominium that you specifically indicated that you are only interested in indoor bonsai. I suspected this to be the case and my suggestions to you are intended to boost your chances of raising a juniper indoor, as it is a good specimen for bonsai.
    I see no reason why Rima should interfer with wild accusation on what does not concern him as my post is directed towards you, thinking you like to keep a juniper indoor. Maybe he has an axe to grind. Correct me if I am off the tracks on your indoor preference. Thanks.
     
  16. bioramani

    bioramani Member

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    All the plants mentioned in my post are nursery bought. I cannot claim any credit whatsoever for their tropicalization. That was why I suggested that they might be cultivars developed for this purpose.

    I shall try to meet the director of the major state owned botanical garden in Bangalore and get some info on the large variety of junipers growing here.

    bioramani
     
  17. terrestrial_man

    terrestrial_man Active Member 10 Years

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    PLEASE MAKE IMAGES TO SHARE!
     
  18. jamkh

    jamkh Active Member

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    Bioramani
    While you are with the director, perhaps you could check for me this question on seeding for junipers and pines, as when a temperate specie is grown in warmer climates, the fruit and seed quality become inferior.
    It would be interesting to know if they are cultivar specimens or the products of natural selection; hybridizing is such a complex subject.
     
  19. bioramani

    bioramani Member

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    One of the horticulture experts at this botanical gardens told me that all the evergreens in this park are the original trees from temperate zones without any modification or hybridization. They all seem to be thriving quite well here. Junipers, Pines, Podocarpus all do well here. There is even a juniper avenue.

    Actually, experts from Kew Gardens are continuously lending their expertise to this 260 acre botanical gardens.

    Though I take long walks here many times, I have not specifically discussed this topic with the concerned experts. I shall revert after a discussion with them.

    bioramani
     
  20. jamkh

    jamkh Active Member

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    Now you have truly arouse my interest as the adaption of these temperate evergreens to sub-tropical climate spell out the route I should take to create a tropical maple. Too often I have been criticized for trying to go against the grain, to do what is undo-able. As I am again threading on slippery ground, I would now assert that I am not encouraging anyone especially newbies to follow my footsteps, not unless you have the curiosity gene and love to experiment and don't mind losing your specimens, Hey, my interest is in hybridizing, so I got tons of materials to discard in time,
    Now seeking your kind indulgence again, could you find out when these specimens were imported. This knowledge would strike a convincing note to my claim that human ingenuity can short circuit the course which would take eons through natural selection. Now my quest is very much shortened as all I need is to extend the range of acclimatization from the sub-tropics to the tropics.
    Thank you so much for giving me a glimmer of enlightenment in my search. My position equates rather closely to a drowning man trying to clutch at straws. The reason for my quest is never for my enjoyment but the enjoyment of my bonsaiing friends in Asia. Is this thought wrong too?? Shakespeare again: There is no art to find the mind's construction in the face. ( Now is it "Macbeth"; time does dull the memory. Atlas!)
     
    Last edited: Jan 4, 2007

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