1st Fukien Tea (Lowes, $3)

[Goolius_Boozler]

This is my first post, i have roughly 3 months of basic Bonsai experience. All my trees have came from Lowes, Bonsai sources are not especially plentiful in Kentucky.

My first tree was a Fukien. I left it as-is with the shitty dirt, moss and glue-on rocks and that tree died in pretty short order. Then i got a Juniperus Procumbens which i only recently learned needed to go outside (its doing ok, i expect it to recover. Same day also brought home a Tiger Bark Ficus which is doing great. I've had those roughly 2 months and today i spotted this Fukien on clearance for 3 bucks, and couldnt pass it up, so here i am on Fukien attempt #2. Im going to repot it right this moment, i have been making my own soil which i will use. Its completely inorganic, and consists of black&red lava rock, pumice (which i got from buying about 20 of those foot pumice stones on clearance and crushed myself) and fullers earth (via single-ingredient oil absorption product).

This brings me to my question: does anyone have any general suggestions as far as an initial prune and styling? I have minimal experience with wiring, im not very good yet but i did wire my other trees and they turned out better than expected. I am comfortable trying to wire this, but the branches feel far less forgiving than my juniper and ficus. I have both types, copper went on my juniper and aluminum on the ficus. Im not sure what type would be best here, im inclined to go with copper but will defer to you guys on that too.

Sorry for being all over the place topic-wise, I wasn't sure if this was the right place for this question. All suggestions and tips are greatly appreciated. Barring other recommendations, The image with the ruler for scale is the angle i plan to use as the front of the tree.

 

[sorce]

Nice trunk for $3.

Welcome to Crazy!

I like the front too.

You can use clip and grow on these, and speaking of clip!

That wiggly trunk is a great feature. You tend to want branching to match, a little wavy.

In all honesty, I'd probly cut all the branches off and start new ones. Now!
Cuz this ain't getting any healthier than it is now.

This will also stop it from dropping leaves like they do, cuz it won't have any!

Then you can wire the soft shoots a bit.

Naked it! Naked it now!

Sorce

 

[Michael P]

Welcome!

Fukien tea is a notoriously finicky species. Given that this tree was subject to the tender mercies of the clearance rack, it still looks pretty good. Even so, I suggest you leave it alone for a year to recover and become strong before you do anything else to it. If you want to work on something right now, get another tiger bark ficus or a dwarf schefflera. Those are tough as nails and summer is the right season to work on them.

 

[Apollyon]

Hey,

My first large sized bonsai was a Fukien Tea. They are delicate when it comes to repotting. I agree with the others, after repotting the tree it should be left to its own devices. Mine bounced back after about 3 weeks if I remember correctly. I had to repot it right out of the box and I remember being nervous the entire time lol. Leaves will start turning yellow and falling off afterwards. Provided the root system didn't get gutted, it will recover after a little time. It's a great tree though and I actually just cleaned it up today, funny.

Wiring is a little sketchy on these guys. Clip and grow definitely is the way to go. However, I bought a "mallsai" and didn't like what was done with it after I got more experience working with bonsai. I decided to wire it despite the "no's." I took a gamble on a second, smaller one first. What I did myself was opt for using two wires that were the next size down from what I would have normally used. I also made the wrapping angle slightly steeper. They say "45 degrees" I would say mine was like 35-40. I didn't want large gaps of surface area between coils. I believe in a way this helped to manipulate the branch without putting extreme pressure and snapping the branches. Raffia may also be an option?

They are indeed brittle, but it can be done. Though you wont be doing dramatic 90 degree bends. You probably could progressively work on a branch over time if the branch matters that much though. Worst case scenerio, it is a 3 dollar tree and you learn something. Also may inspire you to make a design if you don't have one already. I'd say go for it but be very careful. Seems the entire essence of this tree is "conservative."