Hi - I hope you don't mind if I first get this out of the way... do not, please do not buy 'bonsai' for friends unless you know for sure they have experience and knowledge, because all that will happen is the tree will likely die from ignorance and possible lack of desire to care for it, but mostly the former. Ok, secondly, it's a Juniper procumbens nana (very, very, very commonly sold by the bucket load, brought in the gazillions from China all over the world and marketed as 'bonsai', when in fact it was probably stuck in the pot (as a cutting) days prior to being shipped out, most of the time with grotty pebbles glued to the soil and a useless care tag on it.

The trees (Junipers) must normally, as with any evergreen, must live outdoors for life in suitable climates, which yours is a bit south of at best, and if they're stuck in tiny pots need specialized care to survive your summers, if they can, which is certainly not guaranteed by any means. Bonsai are just regular trees or tropical plants which are grown and trained over many years to stay relatively small, though trunks are encouraged to get fat, while branches are not, so they look lots older than they are. And your tree very likely was dead when you got it, or on its way, being watered indiscriminately at the store before you even got it. And watering junipers, never mind what soil to grow them in, and what do to about many other aspects of growing them would take a while to relay right now in this little box, so I won't, but unless you (yourself) want to really get into bonsai in a serious way (it becomes a lifelong obsession!) then forego buying them in big stores and please don't give them to anyone. Too bad...you couldn't know, but now you do, so consider it a learning experience. Oh and for the record, if your tree was alive and healthy, it would be bright green and the branches and foliage soft and pliable, not gray and crunchy... unfortunately they tend to hold some green long after it's too late, but a good first sign of trouble is browning and brittleness from being watered too often (along with other no-no's). Not every sign of 'dryness' in plants means water needs to be thrown at them.

This post was edited by moochinka on Wed, Sep 17, 14 at 23:01