Brown on my bonsai

Hi all,

Thanks to all of the wonderful advise I have obtained from this website, I made my first bonsai tree. I purchased a blue star juniper in a 1 gal container from my local nusery. I chopped major roots off and put it in a smaller bonsai pot. Additionally I pruned branches off to thin it out. I have not finger prined..as I will be doing this in another week or two. There are several small sections where the tips of the green needles are turning brown....

What should I do with the brown needles?? Finger prune it? I know I dont want to cut them off becasue that causes more browning... Should I leave it on the tree? Not too sure...

Also.. I know over watering can casue this browning... I have been very careful with this and feel that it is not an issue here... I am more concerned about the proper removal of the dead needles...

Thanks for your help in advance.


Jeff...

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Tony

You can pluck the dry needles off I you want to, it will cause no harm one way or the other. As for what caused them to brown in the first place, it could be many things. The tree should be grown outside. The low humidity in the house will pull moisture out of the leaves and cause them to brown. How much of the feeder roots did you remove? Most of the time you can't take them from a nursery pot right into the proper size bonsai pot because there won't be enough fine roots close to the trunk. It could also be a watering or pest problem.

Tony

Thanks for the reply.

The tree has been inside and outside (depending on weather) Things here in upstate NY have been a little kooky. When the tree is inside I mist it twice a day. Once at dusk and once just before I go to bed.

When I root pruned it I did take a large amount of roots off. How long will it take for me to realize if I took to many off?

I'll go ahead and pull the brown foilage off. Thanks for the help.


Jeff...

TreeBay

Moving the tree indoors and out will not help things, as Tony says. *Leave it outside, and I would leave it basically alone other than the required watering. *Pulling off foliage is disruptive to the developing root system, plus you lose your reference point to see if it is getting any better.

You will know in a month or so, either way.

Regards,

Matt

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Phogboy

yo Jeff...

question: Is it draining properly?

I had the same problem...check the drainage holes it could be clogged(my problem was the rock glue got "all up in there")...so the soil was retaining most of the water causing the roots to rot.
The leaves started turning brown from the center out...which I never seen, usually the browns starts from the tips...

good luck

Rafa