AusBonsai

Just got home from two weeks away, neighbour was looking after my plants. I believe sat was VERY hot, when I got home Sunday night I found this! Soaked these( the worst) and all my other plants in a tub of fresh water for an hour ,others looking sad but ok. What do I do with these??? Bonsai is premna Japonica others are pre bonsai corky chinese elm, coastal Banksia and 2 trident Maple. Wait????
Defoliate??? C
Yell at my non garden smart neighbour???

Hi Ben Thomas , mate its hard to get good help , I have lost dozens of good pre bonsai material and bonsai allowing people who think they know water while I'm away . Best you can do is hope they spring back , a sand tray or wet bed helps in cases like this . I have hundreds of plants in scoria trays/ wet beds to help eleviate drying out even in extreme heat while I'm here .

Cheers Alpineart

looks like the trident maple will be o.k but the Chinese elm looks like its gone to heaven.

I lost a few when I was away this year. They weren't of the quality like others here but it's sad regardless.

Seasol and seasol and then more seasol. Unless you have some of that snake oil called Superthrive. I think they will all be OK - after all the leaves are still green. For the small amount of trees you have I would have set up a tap timer on an irrigation system or just a sprinkler and run it for 15 minutes twice a day. Then just get your neighbour to check once a day that it is turning on.

Bougy Fan wrote:Seasol and seasol and then more seasol. Unless you have some of that snake oil called Superthrive. I think they will all be OK - after all the leaves are still green. For the small amount of trees you have I would have set up a tap timer on an irrigation system or just a sprinkler and run it for 15 minutes twice a day. Then just get your neighbour to check once a day that it is turning on.

Good advise Tony.

I use a Tap Timer as well and this has been the single best investment of my (cough cough) Bonsai career!

Or better yet join a bonsai club and get a member to look after your trees or board them with the member. I look after a our presidents trees when he goes away

Bougy Fan wrote:Or better yet join a bonsai club and get a member to look after your trees or board them with the member. I look after a our presidents trees when he goes away

Thanks for the info.
I am about to move and will be looking to join a club as soon as we move into our new home. moving to wolli creek in Sydney. any ideas? I see there is a club near city, ill try that unless any other ideas spring up.

do not give up on your chinese elm, it will survive! i had 2 elms in 100% inorganic mix that got very neglected last summer and the leaves all dried, burnt and then dropped off. i left it on the bench and it got watered with all the other raw stock and to my disbeleif it sent out all new green shhots within the week. These can be tough little buggers when the need to be but you might have a number of branched die but the tree survive.

A tip someone told me was to scratch the bark a little with your finger nail and if it's green it's still alive... Did the same thing with one of my elms last year and it bounced back seasol and shade until new growth emerges, good luck

Yep, scratch some bark off with your fingernail, if there's green below you should be ok.
Strip the leaves from the elm, good watering for a few days then hit them with the liquid fertiliser.

macca66 wrote:Yep, scratch some bark off with your fingernail, if there's green below you should be ok.
Strip the leaves from the elm, good watering for a few days then hit them with the liquid fertiliser.

Theoretically, the tree is severely stressed. The last thing you should do is scratch bark off which would cause the tree to yet again try and heal a wound while in stark survival mode,... if it is still alive. If it is alive then great, if it has died then so be it. No point adding stress to a tree that is this bad, no matter how small. Just continue watering it.

Maybe cut back the elm, so it doesn't have a lot of leaves to heal. If the branches haven't gone wrinkly and dry, there's a good chance it will re-shoot. Beware of over-watering - they can get root rot in a vulnerable state like this. Best of luck. We've all been there....

Gavin

Hi Ben,
Get a tub and mix Seasol at 25ml per 9litre. Soak the trees in the tub for at least a couple of hours. When you remove them put them in a shady spot. I don't know how hot the wall and water heater get, so remove them from that spot until they recover. I would give them a soak in a Seasol bath each week until they recover. Do not give them any fertilizer. They need to be showing new growth before introducing fertilizer.

Regards Ray

Just keep them wet for a week then moist after that. Think of it as a defolation will help with ramification I went away for 4 days with temps into low 40's for 3 out of the four days. Left it to the wife and told her to water twice daily till dripping wet. Because she thinks my hobby is rediculous she said no way ill let them die. Me thinking she was joking and would do the right thing laughed and went on my merry way. Got back from my holiday and went to check on the babies and was shocked. Even the olive leaves had dried up. Thats saying something. She was not kidding anyway mate all is not lost. Soaked all the plants and watered the crap out of them for a week or so. Out of 30 odd only two crappy ones in small pots died. I think the fact that most of them were in nursery pots saved them. Yours seem in large pots so should be good. And yes im still with her must love her.