My new Serissa

soonami

My mom's friend was an enthausists for many years, but he had to give it up because of carpal tunnel syndrome he developed from being a chemist and bonsaiing. When he decided to give it up, he gave all but his most priced plants away to friends. He gave my mom several serissa, chinese elm, junipers, ginkos, azaleas, and arborvitaes. I don't quite remember how many because this was when I was much younger, more than five years ago, but when I got to the shed and see 20 big empty bonsai pots I get the idea.

My mom managed to kill most of them, with only 1 ginkgo, 1 serissa, 2 junipers, 1 arborvitae, and one orange surviving. Since I've taken an interest in bonsai, my mom let me take any that I wanted except for the orange-- oranges are good luck in Chinese culture, and my mom likes looking at the fruit. Most of the trees need a lot work, the junipers need some major restyling, I'll post pics of those later, but I did get one of the serissa today and I wanted to post that, there'll be more tomorrow.

I've since repotted the serissa since it hadn't been repotted in about 8 years since my mom got the tree and there was some root rot and slime mold, so that had to be taken care of, I'll post a picture of it now whenever I have time to take another picture

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Joanie

What a fantastic serissa!!!!!! You are SO LUCKY

Beautiful tree!

Joanie

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Aaron_K

I agree,

Lovely looking serissa. Its nice to see one that isn't in an "S" shape style. Sounds like you saved this tree just in time really. 8 years without a repot and root prune!!?? I'm amazed its still alive today lol.

Good luck and congratz on a very nice specimen to begin refining.

All the best,

Aaron

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soonami

It took more than 2 hours to tear that root ball apart. I had to run a knive all the way around the pot to loosen the roots from the pot, the roots had attached themselves to the unglazed ceramic on the inside. I couldn't manage to loosen all of the old dirt from the root ball I but I managed to get a good majority of the roots free and I hope that the tree will be a lot more vigorous now.

The smell was somewhat unpleasant too, not surprising considering the species name, but I can tell this tree will be something special in time

vtbonsaichief

Hey, whenever you prune it take some cuttings. they root like you wouldn't believe. And nice serissa too. The frame work is there. let it run wild for a while and then chop away!

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soonami

Oh yeah, I have a big bush in a 3 gallon nursery pot that I just let grow and start cutting stem pieces that grow in interesting ways. It rooted in like three weeks, which I found out when I pulled it up to look at it

There is a lot of green stuff all over the trunk and roots. I didn't know what the hell it was at first, thought it was a slime mould of some sort but I looked at it again and it dawned on me that it could be algae. But this stuff is all over the roots and the has climbed the trunk all the way to the apex. The tree is obviously still alive so there wasn't that much harm done, but I'd really like to see that white bark again. Anyone have an good tips on how to remove it? My mom told me to try vinegar but I wanted to hear about any other ideas before I got started on that

My mom used to water this tree 2 a day which explains how it managed so long without a repotting.

Joanie

I have some serissas that have that green stuff too. None of my other plants do.

Doesn't seem to hurt anything, not yet anyway.

And they haven't been over watered. It isn't moss, it isn't slimey. It's just bright green.

So what IS it?

Joanie

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soonami

Yeah, you can see the stuff under and inbetween moss and all over the trunk and roots. I can pull it off easily, but it's tedious going underneath and into the crown pulling it out.

FOX7591

That is a very nice tree. I have a shohin chinese serissa and i was wondering what type of soil is best for it? Sorry i dont have any picture, im a noob at this.

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...FOX7591...