Bonsai season not off to a good start.

007

Well, the season has started here, but its not going so great for me so far.

I have a shohin trident that is apparently half dead as all the top growth died back, and to compound the matter there is now a white and orange fungus growing on and around the trunk on the side that died. There is still one live shoot on the other side and I'm going to continue nursing it, but all I can do at this point is wait.

Then there's my Seiju elm that isn't showing signs of waking up yet. The buds are there, the cambium is still a vibrant green, but nothing's happening and I feel like it should be by now.

I lost a laceleaf maple that was buried in my garden thanks to the dogs and some less than carefully placed steps . . . fortunately it was the small one and not the big one.

My apricot cutting from last year, the first successful cutting I ever took, is a goner . . . . .

My JBP has sawfly larvae munching away at the needles. I've manually removed all that I can see and blasted with water and they still return. Finally last night I sprayed the whole tree with neem oil. Hopefully that helps.

Sorry for all the whining . . . but this year of all my years is bonsai is off to the worst start yet.

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BunjinEnt

Chin up! I think most of us have gone through it. Don't give up. Learn from it and drive on.

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Life without Bonsai would be...well, death.

TimD

Ouch Sorry to hear about this. I'ld check that fungus growy thing on your Trident. Might be something you want removed for the tree to recover.


Hope it gets better from here on.

007

I have removed it and sprayed it and the surrounding area with neem oil. There does seem to be less today, but its still there.

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Mcspeed

Kind of sounds like rust on the trident, check further on that soon, as to the elm, if memory serves me well you really haven't had that much warm weather there yet, or at least been going back and forth with warm and cold, wait out the elm I'm thinking that a little more warm weather and the buds will swell.

The saw flies suck, RAID I think is what Nick Lenz uses as a regular wepon against them, the other stuff well that sucks too, but the nice weather is almost settled, and as the trees awake, things will look better.

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If at first you don't succeed -- skydiving is not for you.


Always remember that you're unique -- just like everyone else

Enjoy this day.
Bill

007

Picture of said "white stuff" . . . . . notice the little orange spots too on the trunk?

I do not think this is rust . . . I think it may be "white rot".

Attached Images

bonsai fungus.jpg (69.3 KB, 86 views)

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ALDEVAUX

Your tree is most likely infected by coral spot or Nectria Canker, caused by the fungus Nectria cinnabarina. The fungus that causes this disease is most often a weak parasite that invades twigs and branches and truncs on trees that have been under severe stress from many different causes. However, the canker causes branch dieback and can become very aggressive and kill the affected tissues, even entire small trees, specially those that were stressed and weakened by drought or mechanical injury. The fungus can enter through open wounds and develops mostly when the stressed tree is dormant. It also produces numerous, cushioned-shaped, pinkish orange nonsexual stage fruiting structures on the surface of the canker which produce abundant spores the following spring and early summer which soon shrivel and become brown or black in color. Spores that are released from these structures can cause new infections in fresh, open wounds. The best way to control this disease is to maintain the tree healthy and vigorous and avoiding unnecessary mechanical wounding

007

eeek . . . . can it spread to other trees?

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ALDEVAUX

It can spread to other trees only if they are weakened by stresses and have open wounds on their trunc or branches.
In fact, this is the case for most plant diseases where the pathogen which is most often present in the air, the soil or the water but can infect only if the plant is too weak to resist infection.