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Azalea Bonsai, can I save it?
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Posted by
akingf5371 (
My Page) on
Sun, Oct 8, 06 at 18:12
This is my flame creeper azalea bonsai, I keep it on the ledge outside of my room. It is around 5 here in mississippi, and this is the most sunlight it gets all day. It looks so sad, the leaves keep falling off and they are very brittle. I don't know what to do. I thought I might be overwatering so I removed the humidity tray with the rocks. *(in the corner of the picture) Any azalea bonsai pro advice on the subject?
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Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Azalea Bonsai, can I save it?
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| What is it planted in? Looks like a dug bush from somewhere that was dumped, rootball and all, in a pot - and not a lot of soil used to cover the exposed(?) roots on the sides. However, it also looks quite muddy, and azaleas like mostly peat (one of the very few shrubs that do), for the acid and water holding properties. Let us know what it's in... also, how much and how often you water. The temps might just be too hot for it there as well - apart from preferring LIGHT shade to grow in, it doesn't appreciate too-hot conditions. At this point tho; from the looks of it, I'd make a firm scratch halfway up the trunk and if there's no bright green under the bark, it may be too late anyway. |
RE: Azalea Bonsai, can I save it?
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| I'm not exactly sure what is was planted in, I bought it from a bonzai place in my hometown in southern MS, where it was very healthy there. Upon brining it up to norhtern MS it started looking poorly. I repotted it just recently using some top soil I bought at a local store. I made the scratch, not much green underneath the bark of the trunk, but the limbs still have green under them. I think that is what started the downward spiral, I left it outside during a fairly warm weekend. |
RE: Azalea Bonsai, can I save it?
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| Topsoil from a local store isn't the best idea... How much do you water? |
RE: Azalea Bonsai, can I save it?
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| Um, thinking that overwatering was one of the original problmes with the azlalea in the first place. I water about once every two days. For the sole reason that that the bonsai is retaining a good deal of water and I don't want to swamp it. Also the rootball kept alot of the original dirt in it, so the top soil really is only sitting on the top. |
RE: Azalea Bonsai, can I save it?
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| Well, considering the state it's in (anyway), you'll have to decide whether to go for it and repot again, getting rid of ALL the soil from everywhere, and putting it into a mix of organic material (coarse loam, a handful of grit (small aquarium gravel, crushed lava rock, even perlite either alone or in any combo with others) and a good helping of either chopped sphagnum peat, or just peat moss (i.e. Schultz potting soil), watering slowly when it's all done, over and over, to make sure the peat gets 'wet' (it's very resistant in the beginning) and then don't allow it to dry out more than 1/2":in future, plus give it Mir-Acid whenever you fertilize, as it's the most acid loving plant around. Keep it in light shade all the time and good luck. |
RE: Azalea Bonsai, can I save it?
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aking, I believe you can kiss your bonsai goodbye. Caring for bonsai is most tedious and unless you are experienced in the care of bonsai, you always run into heaps of problems. Watering is the crux of the problem, either overwatering (causing root rot) or underwatering (roots dry out and is a road of no return) are 2 major problems.
I believe in your case the roots dried up due to the over-exposure to strong sunlight; 12 hours is sufficient time to kill a bonsai. If your pot has good large holes, then overwatering is unlikely as it drains well. It takes days for roots sitting in water to drown and rot due to the absence of oxygen. In root rot, the tree die from the top and the death is slow and lingering. When the roots die from totally dry soil, the tree die from the bottom up and the death rate is pretty fast.
I hope you haven't paid too much for your plant. In future rig up a automatic drip from a porous tube, with a plastic tube attached to a beaker of water. As the plant takes in the water from the soil, water leaches out of the porus tube due to osmotic pull. Air pressure then forces water from the beaker into the vacant space in the tube, keeping the tube full all the time. You can control the flow of the drip by raising or lowering the height of the beaker in relation to the tube. Raising allows gravity to assist the drip while lowering makes it work against gravity, thus slowering the rate of drip. This setup is mainly labour saving and you need to fill the beaker like once in 1 to 2 weeks. I have this system working on some of my bonsai and it works beautifully.
Don't give up and better luck will come your way. |
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