[UPDATE]
It is with much sadness, i have to declare this Woolly Bush never recovered from whatever the issues were that lead to it's health deteriorating. I still have it sitting on the bench and have been leaving it alone for quite some time now just to make sure it doesn't miraculously recover but I'm 99.9% sure it's dead.
Although i've been very disappointed with myself over this failure, i think it's crucial to share our failures as well as success. This has been my first really devastating failure so far, but i feel like i have learnt a lot from it and am looking forward to progressing with my other Woolly Bushes.
It's hard to pin down exactly what lead to it's eventual death, but i know a handful of facors which were the mistakes i made, along with the winter we had this year.
The key points i want to point out are;
- Trying to reduce to a bonsai pot too soon, and at a time when the weather was extremely wet and cold for months. I think waiting another year would have made a big difference.
- Doing a fairly hard prune and styling only around a month after transplanting into the bonsai pot.
- Using a mix in the bonsai pot that was too wet for the conditions. (The tree never really got a chance to dry out).
After this the roots started to rot, the tree was weakened significantly and the pests started to take notice. By the time i realised and responded i think the damage was done. I tried my best to recover it but just haven't seemed to be able to get the roots to come back.
I don't think this is necessarily Woolly Bush exclusive, but just general bonsai mistakes mainly. Hopefully my experience can help some others avoid the same thing.
