One hurtin' fukien!

sw

What's up everyone? Here we go, I have a fukien tea, (one of my firsts) that is a little messed up. The tree is about 15 yrs old (I've had it for about 4) and has always been one of my heartiest. I somehow or another let her get way too dry and I am less than excited with the outcome. She dropped all her leaves (after they dried and shriveled up) & is looking pretty sad. I normally keep this tree in my basement 55-65 degrees F for the winter and it does fine even w/minimal exposure to my grow lights. What I did now is brought it upstairs in my house, put her in an indoor plastic greenhouse and I've been keeping her warmer (65-70 degrees F) as well as at a higher than normal humidity level. I just repotted last year and this tree had been thriving I could kick myself for forgetting one of the most important elements of bonsai, H20! Now I guess I just have to wait and see, the only thing that is encouraging is that this has always been one of my strongest trees! I know the tree isn't dead yet because when I scrape a branch we still have green so at least the tree is hanging on. Any suggestions as to anything else I could be doing would be greatly appreciated. Also how long do you think until I see new growth? Thanks a lot.

sw

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John Dixon

SW,

It sounds like you are doing all that can be done. The higher light, temp, and humidity are all smart moves. One thought to consider; Fill the sink up and submerse the entire pot in soft water of room temperature. Let it sit for ten minutes or so. You should see bubbles coming out of the soil. Let it stay the entire ten minutes even if the bubbles stop in the first minute. I think this is an important step because if the soil dried out completely, you may have air pockets trapped around the roots, keeping the moisture away. This is a dangerous situation because the soil MAY look moist, but the roots can't reach it. The submersion will eliminate that. Once that is accomplished, keep it moist but don't waterlog it. Roots need air too. Both moisture and aeration will be necessary for the bonsai to recover.

Although from your description it sounds like lack of moisture caused the leaves to drop, look closely for infestation, specifically scale. Scale has a tendency to sneak up on you and attack vulnerable bonsai, fukien tea is very prone to attack. If so, neem oil or horticultural oil should be used. Scrape them off if you are so inclined. All this assumes an infestation.

If you have green cambium, it has a fighting chance. I don't recall fukien tea being a great candidate for recovery AFTER a complete loss of foliage, but since you say it was a strong bonsai, keep up what your doing for a few weeks. In three weeks or a month if you don't see signs of foliage, I believe you can safely pronounce it deceased. These are evergreen tropicals, and a period of a month WITHOUT foliage has never produced ANY live tree afterwards as far as I can recall.

I hope this was helpful.

Good luck,

John

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John Dixon

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sw

John,

Thanks alot for the response. I'll go ahead and give it a good soak and go from there. I can find no signs of scale so I'm assuming that the leaf drop was due to lack of moisture (I'm now kicking myself in the a**!). I guess now I wait and see what happens, this is always the tough part. Thanks again.

sw

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A beginner, always looking to learn new things!

MariaTM

SW,

I'm pretty new to bonsai, and the first tree I bought in December 2004 was a Fukien Tea. I live in Sweden, not exactly a country with perfect conditions. Air humidity is low and it's cold and dark this time of year...

What happened when I brought the tree home was that it quickly started to look sad, all the leaves lost their vigour, went dry and finally fell off. Panic!! I didn't know what to do, but after consulting the Internet, I made a small greenhouse (a quite simple one that probably didn't help much), tried to create air humidity by placing a water tray inside, and installed a lamp above, but... nothing happened. For six weeks! About once a week I cut the tip off a branch, scraped the bark and looked for signs of life. It was green and smelled fresh under the bark, but it refused to grow at all. It just stood there looking dead while my friends laughed at my first bonsai attempt.

After one and a half month, when I was just about to give up hope, my brother got tired of his fishes, flushed them down the toilet, and there was suddenly an empty aquarium at my parents' house. Hmm...

I brought the aquarium home and put a 1-2 cm thick layer of stones and water on the bottom. Instead of placing the lamp that belonged to the aquarium on top, I put it under the acquarium, thereby adding warmth from below and making the air in the acquarium extremely humid. I put the tree in the acquarium on the stones and put a glass plate on top to keep the heat and moist inside. I finally placed two lamps above the whole installation. A timer turns on the lights under and above at 6am and shuts them off at 10pm which gives the tree 16 hours of warmth and light. When all lights are turned on, the temperature is about 28 degrees C, and during the night it falls to 21 degrees.

To my great surprise, it only took 48 hours for the tree to start producing new buds all over. It's been almost two weeks now and the tree is completely covered with new, green foliage! Quite amazing!

What I'd like to say is, don't give up hope, and I hope you understood my explanation.

Good luck,

Maria

jloeschner

Maria,

The environment that you recreated with the aquarium will help the tree. However, you must be very careful not to allow it to begin growing fungus. Aeration is essential! Also, you must consider what to do in the long run. The tank is serving as a hospital of sorts for the tree. After it has recovered, it will need to be acclimatized to grow without the aquarium. Unless, of course, you plan to keep the tree as a terrarium plant indefinitely.

In regards to the fungus, remember that it can literally spring up overnight! Simply opening the lid once or twice a day will not solve this problem. Trust me, I am speaking from experience in this matter. I have kept several "grow tanks" or terrariums, and even have one now that I use to propagate cuttings. Without airflow, your plant WILL die eventually.

If you would like a suggestion, try using a computer fan. Cut holes in both ends of your lid, and place the fan over one of them. Place the fan so that it blows out, or up, in order to suck air out of the aquarium. This will cause air to be sucked in from the other hole, which will provide a gentle breeze inside the tank. Of course, this will reduce your humidity, but without the airflow, the setup is doomed to fail.

Regards,
John

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MariaTM

John,

thanks for your tips, especially the fungus warning! As I said, I'm new to bonsai and need all the help I can get. I'm not sure where to get hold of a computer fan, but I'll ask around.

My intention is to acclimatize the tree to the environment in my flat, so a couple of days ago I removed the glass plate above the tree permanently to reduce the humidity level. It's been a sunny week so I've also been taking it out of the aquarium about two hours every day before lunch, placing it on a sunny spot on my kitchen table (about 1.5m from the window). The tree seems to be happy with it as it keeps growing and producing even more new leaves.

About the acclimatization, should I take the tree out every day and gradually increase the time it's out of the acquarium, or should I just take it out for good and see what happens? I plan to have a water tray under it to create humidity, and the tree is going to stand in a room with big windows facing east. What to you think?

Thanks,
Maria

jloeschner

Maria,

Based on my experience, I would recommend acclimatizing it a little each day. For example, the first day, leave it out for an hour. The second day, leave it out for two hours. The thid, for three hours, and so on. I have had mixed results with the cuttings I have just removed without first acclimatizing them. The ones I acclimatized have all survived.

Also, for a great place to buy computer parts, PM me. I build computers as a hobby and for my friends and family, and have MUCH more experience with them than bonsai. I get my parts online at a very good store, whose address I will give you if you message me.

Regards,
John

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Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.

QUI ME AMAT, AMAT ET CANEM MEAM