Chinese Elm beginning, need advice

[Ayata]

Hello everyone!
Yesterday i bought this Chinese Elm from a home/gardening shop here in Poland. Obviously it has the short comings of any other mallsai, mostly style and stock wise. Not my first elm, will be a long project but before we get to that, here are some photos:



As far as health goes, it seems to be in a pretty good condition to me. I picked this one up from a box on the side, tightly packed with other trees. Whole batch seemed like they just arrived from the supplier in the way they were packed and they were in way better condition then other mallsais on display there. In the close up photo you can see the fresh growth at tips. Maybe from before it was shipped, maybe after. It has the signature branch mess and the signature muddy no good for anything soil.
I live in Krakow, which is a zone 6a. We have frosty winters here that can drop to -18/-20 easily and I dont think this one would survive any of that in its current pot and soil, so i need advice how to handle this.
Do i repot, put it outside so it starts to prepare for dormancy (is it too late?) and go dormant then hope for the best in spring?
Do i not touch it, keep it indoors and green, bring out in the spring and then let it go dormant next year?
Repot, keep it in and green, dormancy next year?
Slip-pot, keep outside?
What other options would you recommend?
Im only considering keeping it in with no dormancy because i read occasionally about some people that kept this species as an indoor tree and it survived for few years, ofc without the vigor of outdoors behavior but still. And i only need to go through this winter.

Back in 2012 i had another Chinese Elm that i was keeping in Istanbul (8b) , Turkey. I slip-potted that one and let it go through dormancy. Everything went perfect, pruned early spring and then crazy growth came only to succumb to spider mites later on.(really hurt to lose that tree as it was my first one to go through dormancy). But winter there was nothing like winter here. In Istanbul it snows a little, making for nice photos but usually not much else.

As for styling and all, i will probably go for informal upright, turn this into something in 7-10 years hopefully. Maybe let it gain some height and go broom if i get impatient with it. Im just happy to have it for now. Not having a garden or a big house, i dont have the means for fully focusing on this hobby. I am trying stuff with tropicals but constant location changes every 2-3 years didnt help. A little chinese elm introduced me to bonsai back when i was 12 yeas old so this species have special place for me and i hope i will be able to make a proper bonsai out of one in the future.

Any advice or critique about tree and ideas mentioned are welcome.
Cheers!

 

[coltranem]

Witamy

I like that it doesn't have the typical mallsai S shape. I will let others with more experience answer your questions.

 

[Ayata]

@coltranem thank you! The `S` shape was something i was trying to avoid. It seems no one offered any opinions so i will give an update one week in;

During first few days the plant lost about 2 dozen leaves. I was not sure if it was due to location change or watering. Soil was really clumped together on the surface, making the water spill over the edges. I raked the surface of the soil to get some excess dirt out of the way and discovered lots of feeder roots. The soil mass above the pot edge level really made it difficult to water properly. Turned out watering was the problem.
Tree adjusted to all this and gave 2-3 nodes of growth over the first week. This gave me confidence to go through with repoting. I ordered some baked clay, picked up a pot from a home/building store and yesterday i repoted the tree.
It was root bound, root mass was difficult to get out of the pot and as i raked out, there were lots of spots that made me think there must be rocks in the soil. As you can guess it turned out that some of the soil broke down completely and it kind of turned to clay with parts of it solidifying over time. Maybe this was some sort of akadama soil and it broke down long time ago. You can see in some pictures the light brown muddy spots.
After cleaning up the root ball, i cut off the aerial roots that came out of the trunk like a ficus. Rest of it was generally nothing special to me, nebari will need to be built. I wasn't able to see any good side there, so i will wait and see what kind of roots it will grow in this healthier soil and work from there.
For now the plan is to wait and see how it reacts, if any new growth kicks in or not. If there is new growth, i think i will go ahead and clean up some of the branch mess. Right now there are some branches that almost do a whole lap around the tree after those are cut back, i will post pictures to have discussion on styling.


Soil mix is 4 parts 2-4 mm baked clay, 1 part organic and larger baked clay at the bottom for drainage.
Cheers

 

[Ayata]

Update time.

Around November 21st i did some pruning as the tree seemed to be in good shape. Here is how it looked like after the pruning:

And how it looks like as of today:

Really low light levels with basically no direct sun, cloudy days add up to big leaves.

 

[Bonsai Nut]

I'm sorry I didn't see this when you first posted. Welcome to the site!

I would have recommended not to do any work until spring. However, since you have already repotted and pruned, you will just need to be patient and let it grow (and strengthen) until it is warm enough to put it outside. At this point it is really important not to prune it again until it shows that the roots have recovered.

I'm not 100% certain that Chinese elm can take a Polish winter without some protection. Do you have somewhere like an unheated garage or a cold porch where you could keep this tree in the winter - cold but still protected from the wind and the worst of the elements?

 

[Ayata]

I'm sorry I didn't see this when you first posted. Welcome to the site!

I would have recommended not to do any work until spring. However, since you have already repotted and pruned, you will just need to be patient and let it grow (and strengthen) until it is warm enough to put it outside. At this point it is really important not to prune it again until it shows that the roots have recovered.

I'm not 100% certain that Chinese elm can take a Polish winter without some protection. Do you have somewhere like an unheated garage or a cold porch where you could keep this tree in the winter - cold but still protected from the wind and the worst of the elements?

Thank you
I have a storage unit down in the basement, but I’m not sure if I will be still living in this place next winter so hard to say. I think it could survive outside untill -10C. Below this, I would worry. People with more experience can advise maybe.
It’s hard to resist pruning thıse long shoots but i will follow your advice.

 

[Bonsai Nut]

It’s hard to resist pruning thıse long shoots but i will follow your advice.

In a simplistic way, think of the roots and foliage balancing each other. In this case, the tree has been through some dramatic change in a short period of time, in an off-season. Both the foliage and the roots are weak. You need to let the foliage grow wild, so that the roots grow strong. Think of the foliage as solar power generators to provide energy to the tree - as well as to signal the need for additional root development to support more and more foliage. If you keep pruning away the foliage, the tree will never get strong and the roots will never develop. Worse case the tree could just weaken and die.

With Chinese elm you can always prune all the branches back hard, and the tree will push new buds everywhere - as long as it has strong roots. So don't worry about styling right now - just worry about letting the tree recover.

 

[Ayata]

Update time.
This one has been doing well. After the November pruning, I did not touch it for a while. On 11th of April, I cleaned up some of the long shoots at the lover branches because they were getting really long but i left the upwards shoot. Spring is here but temperature fluctuations seem too high to me to bring it outside. At what temperature range can I bring this indoor grown mallsai outside? I would like to wait a bit more with that to be safe. Here is how it looks like today;


I think its time to shorten that upper growth and get some branches off of it, keep building an apex with that.
Opinions are welcome.

 

[MoriLZ]

I have kept my Chinese Elm outdoors almost consistently outside since the end of March in zone 4b. Just have to watch if the temperatures will drop below freezing and then give them protection from frost.

 

[Ayata]

Hello everyone
Here is how the tree looks today:



Around 18th of July, I did some pruning and put some of the cuttings to water. Out of 7 of them: 1 dried up quickly, 3 of them had roots by mid August and were planted. one of them got planted today (still in water in the photos) and 2 of them are still in water, without leaf loss and with signs of roots coming out. So July is the time for cuttings i guess. Here are the three that got planted and the others that are still in water:



The one on the right is showing some vigor

I took the main tree out as I was mentioning before, but later then I intended to. I purchased a Maple form a garden center and It showed spider mites within a few days after bringing home. Having lost an elm to spider mites before, I couldn't risk this one. So it came out around beginning of August. Other than a a node or two and some length in the branches, all the growth you see in these photos has been achieved indoors without proper fertilizing. Now the tree is out and healthy in its place, waiting for winter. For next spring I'm planning to cut back the growth up top, to encourage lower branches and let them grow wild for taper. Other than that, no plans for styling. I am thinking about starting a different thread for the cuttings.