I just recently moved to St. Augustine, Fl and I brought most of my bonsai collection with me. I had to set up a misting system to help some of my bonsai cope with the extreme heat of the summer. The misters are on a timer and they come on once every two hours for two minutes. It keeps the pots moist, but I still deeply water about every three days if there is no rain. My question is about my water. I am using well water that smells awful and leaves red stains(iron I'm assuming) on my bonsai leaves. I want to know if that can harm the leaves or even the roots? I have been here for three months now and one my bonsai got severe root rot. I noticed a lack of new growth and a yellowing of the foilage and then I checked the soil. the roots were black and rotting. Now this bonsai was still in a training pot with peat and potting soil(unlike my other bonsai). So, I repotted it with a well draining soil and sprinkled lots of rootone on the roots that weren't dead. I hope it makes it! Do you think the hard water had something to do with that?

I've visited a few bonsai nurseries in Florida and none of them had misting systems. They used shade from shadecloth or large trees.

Constant misting of leaves and trees doesn't sound like a very good idea. It really sounds counter productive for established plants.

In your case I believe technique is more counterproductive than the quality of water. There are too many gorgeous plants grown in that part of the country for water to be that big an issue.

I've visited many wholesale nurseries in the Rio Grande Valley and their water stinks too, but they still crank out beautiful plants.

randy

Now it's because we travel. Then you probably should have an automatic watering system for when you travel. I have hundreds of plants that don't bake in 100+ weather and I don't live where it gets really hot like the desert southwest. They didn't bake when we were hitting about 110+ everyday for a few weeks. I only watered every day with some very small containers getting another shot in the afternoon.

You asked for advice, I gave it. Go for a drive and visit all the nurseries around you to see how many places use misters to water.

If your water has a lot of undissolved solids in it, spraying it on the leaves every 2 hours doesn't sound like a good idea. Put drip heads on the top of the pots and let them water the soil to the point the water runs out of the pot to help flush those solids out of the soil.

Just wetting the soil every 2 hours can and probably will build up a toxic amount of solids on the soil and trunk of the plants over time. Watering completely doesn't allow that to happen. You can wash off the leaves on occasion when you don't get a rain shower so often.

randy

To save it, I recommend cutting back on the water and feeding it with SuperThrive tonic.

HOWEVER - in the summer it can get HOT here. We are talking DRY heat in excess of 100 degrees (last summer we peaked out at 108 a few days). The only way to keep foilage on some of my trees in that heat is to move them into shade or under shade cloth. My pines and junipers love the heat. Elms don't do too bad. Maples hate it. Note that the trees with scorched foilage still do fine - when the weather cools in the Fall they drop the rest of their leaves and have a healthy Spring burst of growth. I just have to sacrifice a lot of their exterior foilage if I don't move them out of the sun.

Alex

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