Cedar elm prebonsai watering issue?

[Deleted member 15257]

Hey all,
In January, I purchased two 1 gal. Cedar elms from Brent at Evergreen Gardenworks. Based on info received from our local bonsai club, I immediately potted them up into #5 pots using 1 part perlite and 1 part Happy Frog soil. I’ve been fertilizing with Jack’s 20-20-20 at the recommended strength once every two weeks. They’ve been exploding this spring with rich green foliage, but I’ve started to notice some of the new leaves have pale, spotted leaves. I’m concerned I may not be watering enough, but I’m curious if you all have any thoughts. The reason I think it may be a watering issue is because I also have two trident maples in the same potting mix and size of pots sitting next to them. Some of those tridents have some sun damage on their old leaves but the new ones are all really healthy.Thanks in advance.

 

[Yo Mango]

How often are you watering? Are they always outside? In shade, sun? What’s your fertilizer routine? Also, any signs of pests or fungus. What’s going on under the leaves?

 

[Tieball]

Fungus.
I'd suggest you start with a Google search for “symptoms of fungus on tree leaves”.....or “symptoms of fungus on plant leaves”.

I believe yours is a mild case right now. Left unattended it can get worse and probably will. A fungus doesn’t just stop...it likes to continue to grow and spread as long as the conditions for that spreading are present.

 

[sorce]

I think fungus too ...

But I wouldn't freak out over it. I've had it bad on my Siberian Elms for 2 or 3 seasons and this year they're banging. Haven't lost anything.

Oh BTW...I "hell yeah" 'd fuzzbutter aloud.

Welcome to Crazy!

I reckon your 91% humidity isn't helping, that space looks like a stagnant air space too, looks fungally.

Can't really compare it to tridents as far as water, I'd gather a trident could use much more water. Not that they both shouldn't be watered everyday.

Sorce

 

[Deleted member 15257]

Thanks for the help everyone... and sorry for the delayed reply as I was out of town for a bit. I'm glad for your suggestions and I did some searches for fungal issues with elms while leaving the plant be for a few days. In that time, it definitely progressed to some of the old leaves and some additional branches. As it's covering far less than 10% of the tree right now, I just opted to remove the damaged leaves and some of the more damaged branches. I noticed one elm is way more affected than the other. The more affected elm was situated between two other trees, so I opted to move it to the middle of the yard away from everything else. I'm giving everything as much space as possible right now and hoping for the best.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Maybe it’s worth going upstream to the probable cause. Seems that you might have a watering issue, as you suspected, that caused the fungus. That usually is the trigger. You have a solidly water retentive media in the Froggie/perlite mix. It’s just a step beyond the mix often used for azalea cuttings, a mix you really have to watch to ensure it is turning dry, but never totally dry, before watering. . Here’s the Ingredients:

• Composted forest humus, sphagnum peat moss, perlite, earthworm castings, bat guano, humic acid (derived from Leonardite), oyster shell and dolomite lime (for pH adjustment). btw Ceder Elm can tolerant higher pH.

Cedar elms are full sun tough, drought-tolerant trees the require moderate watering. However the tree can exist in wetter areas.

So I’d sure that mix gets mostly dry before you water. Also, you might want to chock up one side of each pot to lower your water table to the minimum for a couple weeks. It can’t hurt.

It would be great to see how things look in a month or so!

cheers
DSD sends