Small Chinese Elm losing healthy leaves

[Bec]

Hi guys, I have a small Elm. It had few leaves when I purchased it. It’s growing new leaves, but it seems to drop it’s older hardened, still green leaves with little effort, wind, water, even a light touch will do it.

Is rust likely to make perfectly good leaves fall? I treated it with a fungicide that has zinc and sulphur in it, but it is still dropping leaves. Should I treat it again? I have other elms that have branches full of leaves, and they don’t lose them at all, as this one does.

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[shibui]

I notice your elm is on a table. Please tell me your elm lives outside most of the time and you only brought it in to take the photo

[tgward]

If it were mine I would pot into a larger 4 inch pot --free draining mix --outside in sunny spot -in the breeze--keep damp not wet--tassie shouldn't be too hot for it

[Bec]

Hi Shibui, no I don’t keep my trees inside. We had some strong winds and thunderstorms yesterday, so I brought that particular one in to save it’s remaining leaves, I heard Chinese elms have been kept as house plants and thought it would be better for the plant for a day than having no leaves. It’ll go back out today to take advantage of the sun.

[KIRKY]

I would repot it you won’t know anything till you have a look at the roots. Fresh soil will have new nutrients etc...
It should start to improve Elms are pretty hardy. I’d give it a drink of Seasol after the repot.
Cheers
Kirky

[shibui]

Great to hear it lives outside. So many think these are houseplants and post because they are dying inside.
Next guess would be nutrients: A little pot holds very few nutrients and regular watering soon leaches anything that is available away and leaves the plant starving. The fallen leaf looks like it is suffering a nutrient deficiency. Typical reaction to nutrient deficiency is for the plant to reallocate any available resources to the newest leaves and sometimes ditch the older leaves. Most successful bonsai growers feed their trees every 2-3 weeks.
equal 2nd most likely is watering: This is in a really tiny pot. It will probably dry out before lunchtime unless you have special arrangements to conserve water. Typical reaction to water shortage is to drop some or all leaves. I guess that's why Kirky has mentioned repotting (also nutrients) and tgward has recommender a larger pot, at least until you've learned to look after it really well. Smaller pots are really, really difficult to manage. Medium and large bonsai are far easier.