azalea slowly dying - help - Photos Here

enoki79

i received my first and only bonsai two years ago, a healthy azalea in a ceramic pot (approx. 9x15cm pot). tons of beautiful flowers that year, bloomed twice. cleaned out all dead flowers that fell. supplemented soil with this soil on top and around as the root ball became compacted slowly over time with watering. i water diligently and fertilizer or use vitamins maybe once a month or less, alternating. i do not feel that i overwater, but then again i'm a newbie.

bonsai repotted into 13x19 plastic pot about a year ago. placed on sunny kitchen windowill (shady during most of the day, a few hours of sunlight in the afternoon). read a beginner's book that said pruning was necessary. pruned several branches around sides. no paste.

ever since then, the bonsai looks sick. leaves less dark (not evergreen, but light green). many brown dead, crackly leaves, always falling off. constantly, leaves turn brown and fall off. some leaves are half green, half brown. many of the pruned branch tips NEVER grew back! bark looks dry?

about 8 months ago, noticed tiny white insects in soil. purchased bonsai pesticide spray from this store ('not harmful to plants'). seems to work, but not 100% certain all bugs are gone. went to a bonsai store to ask; store owner said they looked like 'tree mites'. (they look like tiny white rice)

the root ball (base of plant) is very compact. during repotting tried to comb out roots a bit to aerate, but really really hard, not sure if that would harm roots if i forced the ball to separate. worried that root ball is not getting enough oxygen?

repotted again 6 months ago. bonsai revived, with some very dark green leaves for a few weeks. now it has again taken a turn for the worse!

this is a healthy photo of when my bonsai was much much healthier in appearance.

click the links below to see photos of my poor azalea bonsai...help! *cry
leaves1
leaves2
trunk
leaves3

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Asus101

I may not be telling you the right thing here so I'll tell you things that wont harm the tree any more than already has.

A. take the tree outside. Sad to say its not really enough light inside, even in a window. Many bonsai are sold as an indoor plant but 90% of the time they are wrong. Good ol' sales pitch.

B. The bonsai fertiliser. Its hard to say. I dont think it would have been what the plant needed. I know azalea's need special requirements. Picking up some from your local hardware is all that's needed. Same with the vitamins, the plant may not have needed them. In some cases the wrong fertilizer can kill a tree. Here in Aus i would never dare give my natives plants the same fertilizer, in this case high phosphorus would kill them. But i only learnt that due to some research.

here is some worthwhile reading on azalea's. You should check your labels on the soils and fertilisers and see if anything mentioned in the article matches what you have.

weeble

It looks like a pretty typical florist azalea (at least thats what we call them here .)

Azaleas generally do loose some leaves this time of year, but it does sound like something more is going on with yours. I have a bunch that I repotted this summer that went through a pissed-off phase just like yours is now, and came out of it fine. Your leaves that are green look perky and happy, not floppy-dead, so it looks to me like this guy can come out of this if you get it figured out.

First, what heat and temperature zones are you in? It'll help us tell you what would be best for your tree. Azaleas are an outdoor plant, but I dont think they are terribly cold resistant. Even though the florist azaleas are often sold as 'indoor' plants they never do as well indoors as outside here where azaleas grow wild.

Second, the general "All purpose" soil mix you are using is not really designed for azaleas. They are an acid soil loving plant, and you should use a soil mix that does NOT contain LIME. I suspect that has as much to do with your azalea's declining health as being stuck indoors.

Third, check your windowsill temperature, your plant may be getting 'cooked' in the few hours of sunlight or chilled at night. The older leaves almost look sunburnt. Remember the amount of sun a windowsill recieves can change drastically depending on time of year.

If you have any doubts about your watering, use the 'chopstick' test. Stick a chopstick or wooden dowel or popsicle stick into the soil, let it sit for a few minutes, then pull it out. If the stick is damp and bits of soil stick to it, you're fine, if its dry, its time to water.

I would recommend you use stop using the generic 'bonsai' fertilizer and vitamines and use Miracid or some other acid-loving-plant fertilizer to help your plant get through the winter. The vitamines are really not necessary on a regular basis, but would help with a stressed plant such as after a transplant. There are many good brands of acid-lover fertilizer with micronutrients out there, a lot cheaper than the 'bonsai' fertilizer you've got.

Then in spring repot into a bonsai mix that has sphagnum moss/peat but no lime, or add more sphagnum moss to your mix. The azaleas I repotted came out of straight peat, which seems to be the potting medium of choice for the florist azaleas they crank out around here. You may have to bite the bullet and tease that rootball apart when you do transplant.

Hope that helps

Maryjane
Aka Weeble

Mcspeed

Lime, not enough light, and root pruned(raked - see below) 2 times in one year.

Bad, bad, and terrible, sounds a bit harsh, but you need to take a bunch of steps backwards and learn about bonsai hoticulture, before you attempt it, it's really differant than typical house plant culture. I didn't see where you are from but the tree needs to get out of the house, so an effort needs to be taken to acclimate the tree to the outdoors, then start treating it hoticulturally in a better way ,and it might might make it.

Another thing I saw is fert or vitamins once a month, this is probably underdone, the bugs are more than likely a symptom of the soil being wet too much. Pruning willy nilly on a basal dominant tree can draw needed energy away from branches this can cause you problems.

Read read and read some more, in this forum and others if you are truely interested, cutting corners, or not treating bonsai correctly tends to have bad results.

azelea roots in my experiance don't tease out well( form a tangled mat of fine roots) and are done in sections of removal( the pie wedge thing), but if this has clay and or peat up under the trunk, it'll need to be cleaned out.

Sorry not tyring to beat you up, or discourage you, hopefully you can turn this one around and show it off for us later.

__________________
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Bill

enoki79

i'm in northern California.

actually i was trying to say that i was NOT successful at raking the root at all and it's all balled up really tight. repotting involved moving the entire ball and putting soil around it more or less.

will check soil to see if it's too wet.

will definitely look into the lime, acid soil, and light but it's very stormy and cold up here at the moment. how many hours of sunlight should i strive for? it's 50 degrees here right now and i'm shivering at my desk. is there any way to keep the plant a little warmer? i'm confounded because my neighbor has an azalea that bloomed this past year on his/her windowsill and i can see it is healthy and green. maybe i will ask him/her about it.

some books in the past told me to prune. someone told me that pruning 'shocked' my plant too much. at this point i don't want to hurt my tree ever again, since it seems to have gone downhill ever since the pruning 2 years ago. +(

thank you to everyone, please keep it coming!

rockm

Before you put it outside, you should determine what your growing zone is and what type of azalea you have. Some varieties are not very cold hardy.

Windowsill are extremely bad places for bonsai. The temperatures vary wildly throughout the day and night--especially if it is in full sun in the daytime. They are also drafty, which is extremely bad if the draft is very cold.

Mcspeed

Don't know what your "winter " temp swing is but if 50 is the low put it outside. If it was 50 at my house all my tropicals would still be out, 50 is only cool to your tree, but as rockm said try to figure the tree type, and compare info on that against your typical weather. I still advocate getting a better background for work with bonsai through reading and hands on learning. You said N.Cal. bet you can find a club not far away, that would be your best learning tool.

__________________
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

weeble

Where in northern California? I'm on the south oregon coast, and there is a bonsai club in the area....

Maryjane
aka Weeble