Please help! Sick fukien tea

Kellyfish79

Hi all! I'm new here and unfortunately already posting in this forum for dying trees. I need help w/ my new fukien tea. I have had it for about 3 weeks now. I purchased it from a well established bonsai nursery. They had been keeping it in a greenhouse of sorts. She told me there that I should just keep it indoors since they already had it "indoors".

Well it was doing fine for the first two weeks or so. Then I noticed some of the leaves not quite as dark green as the older leaves. Then I started to notice some sticky substance on the leaves and also little white dots on the leaves. After consulting another bonsai forum, I got some neem oil and treated the tree. Seemed to be doing better after that...not as much sticky stuff and couldn't see anymore bugs...so I thought that was good.

Well now I am losing a lot of leaves and the ones on the tree are getting pretty wilted. Some of the lost leaves are brown others are just really light green/yellowish. I have been watering on a schedule of about every 3 days or so. Pretty much when the first inch or so of the soil is dry. I have been keeping it indoors (like the lady said) but have been puting it out on my back porch in shade/partial sunlight for a couple of hours during the late afternoon/evening. I am wondering if it is not getting enough light in my apartment. the window I leave it close to is north/west facing, but there is a building right next to mine so I don't think the sun really shines right into the window. I'm also concerned about the air conditioning inside. I have read that it is very bad for the trees. I usually keep the air turned mostly off during the day while i'm at work, but i still wonder if it is hurting the tree...or maybe a combination of both not enough light/air conditioning.

Also it is time for me to feed the tree. Is it safe to feed it when it is behaving the way it is? Or is it behaving the way it is b/c it needs food? Sorry this is so long and that I have so many questions, but this is my first tree and I really want it to be ok!!!
Any advice that anyone can give is GREATLY appreciated. I live in San Antonio, Texas.

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Joanie

You'll get lots of help tomorrow, so check back then.

You probably aren't getting enough light through the window, and the air conditioning is pulling the moisture right out of the tree. Keeping trees inside an apartment isn't at all the same as a greenhouse, and it is not reasonable to equate the two.

Don't feed the tree, it's never a good idea to feed a sick tree. Let people help you tomorrow, and see what they say.

Good luck!
Joanie

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scionkirk

I got a Fukien Tea about 3 weeks ago, and I was too smitten by it to do a more critical scan before I bought it. When I got it home, like you I found aphids underneath most of the leaves, these strange white jumping insects in the base of the tree (so many that they supported a fairly good sized spider that had set up residence in the roots). I picked off two scales (look for them, they are fairly well camouflaged and look like little tiny turtle shells), and found two earth worms in the soil. People here seem to be 50/50 on whether worms are pests or not, but I pulled them out because I want the plant indoors and I was worried about them going on a little adventure one day.

The thing about bugs that I discovered is if you do a once over scan, you'll probably miss them. Set the plant on a table and sit down and just watch it for a minute or two. I found the worms by its castings magically appearing, and it took me a few minutes to see the tiny white jumpy things because they were so small.

I sprayed it with a 'garden safe' insecticide made from canola oil and pyrethrins, and after about three good all over sprays about 3 or 4 days apart, there are no more little creatures on it. At first it was dropping leaves like crazy, I'd shake it and leaves would fall off, but not I only lose about 5 or 6 a day, and I see new buds and even some flowers opening up, so I'm assuming the leaf loss I have is normal. I also got a 65 watt grow light that I shine on it for a few hours a day.

If you haven't already check out the 'similar threads' at the bottom of the page. Lots of info on Fukien Teas, that's how I found this board.

Kellyfish79

"Keeping trees inside an apartment isn't at all the same as a greenhouse, and it is not reasonable to equate the two."

That's exactly what I thought!! My tree is outside today and the weather is perfect right now for it. I think he will be much happier there. I'm going to start with that...leaving him outside and I'm going to buy a humidity tray for him to prepare for the winter.

But all help and advice is still needed! I'm going to try to post some pics of him tonight.

As far as the bugs go, I examined him pretty well last night and did not find any more bugs. I do plan on treating him w/ the neem oil next week sometime. Is it true that I should only treat w/ neem oil every 2 weeks?

Graydon

As noted on previous post - not the same. Greenhouses are sunlit, hot and humid. Inside can be cold, dry and dark.



Fukien teas are known as bug magnets. Don't over use the neem, try a blast of water to remove pests if you can. A healthy tree will do better against pests than a sick one would.



Get it in the sun - it needs sunlight to get healthy. Start with partial sun and slowly move to full sun in a month. Watch the temperature as I know teas do not like cold weather (search the forums for more exact info). In that case move it in to protect from the lows and back out so it can have some light. When you do this you will need to pay much more attention to the watering. Water when needed, not on a schedule. Your observation of 1" dry is a good starting point but to have a total grasp on watering search the forums and do some reading. When you do water let it flow thru for a little while. You want a thorough saturation of the soil. Then you want the dry down and then another saturation of water. You are getting oxygen to the roots by doing this - and that is good. Constant water on roots = root rot and that is bad.



No! No food until it's healthy, and you will know when that has been accomplished. It will be fine for months without food, perhaps longer based on the soil it is planted in. Some soils hold more nutrients than others. We feed trees a lot to keep them growing vigorously to put on girth but truth be told you can go quite a while with no ill effects.

Hope this helps.

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Kellyfish79

Thanks for the reply gordon. Lots of good info there.

Ok well I'm home on my lunch break to check on mr. tree. He's been outside so that is good for light. However, I brought him in for a close examination and the ants are loving him. Not tons but quite a few ants running around in the soil and on some of the leaves. I want to leave it outside, but don't want it to be attacked by ants. Are the ants attracted by some other pest? I thought I read that ants are attracted to the sticky of scale. I think I also may have found some scale on parts of the trunk. ugggh. Poor tree.
When do I know that a systemic is the right method for getting rid of these pests?

Joanie

If it's scale, take your time and pick each one off. Use an exacto knife, or a pointy tool of some sort. Squash the little devils, and pull them off the trunk. If you do this every couple of days, you can get them under control. I wouldn't apply a systemic to a sick tree unless I had to. And it takes time for the tree to "uptake" the poison and feed it to the scale.

Nothing survives squashing.

If you want to put your tree outside, and you're sure that it is scale and aphid free, but you want to make sure not to get ants (which, after all, do carry scale and aphids and put them onto the tree) then set it into a bowl of water, with your tree's pot sitting above the water line. Like a moat around a castle. The ants can't get over the water. Simple, and poison free. Just make sure that the tree pot is above the water, because sitting in water will rot the roots. An additional benefit is that the humidity coming off the water will benefit your tree.

Also, don't move the tree in and out if you can help it. If the day is nice, and the night is not too cold, leave it where it is. Trees don't naturally move around, and they don't like adapting to changes very quickly.

Joanie

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Kellyfish79

Thanks Joanie!

Should I do anything about the ants that are running around in the soil? Or is there even anything I can do?

Joanie

They won't hurt anything. Ants don't eat trees. At least, not the kind of ants that we get. Think of them as a symptom, like a fever when you have the flu. The fever tells you that something is wrong, and when your body has fought off the virus, the fever goes away.

Don't worry about them, just take care of the scale. Squish, squish.

Joanie

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