Did I Kill My Serissa?

[vdeschamps]

Hello All,

This is my very first post on the forum. I've been into bonsais since December of 2011 only. I have two small trees: one Hawaiian Umbrella Tree and a Mount Fuji Serissa. They both live inside and are under a growing light 24/7. One and a half month ago, I started watering them with fertilizer (npk 20-20-20). The Hawaiian Tree loves it, but the Serissa doesn't. The Serissa started losing leaves as soon as I got it, slowly, and after the fertilizer all the leaves died. But...a new shoot appeared from the ground, grew for a couple of weeks and died. I've added a picture of the Serissa.

My question is: did I kill it? Can I save it?

Thanks,

Vincent

Sorry for the bad quality of the picture!

 

[Redwood Ryan]

Sorry, but it looks totally gone. If you want to be sure, scratch the bark. If there is green underneath there is hope. If it's brown, well, I'm sorry.

 

[JudyB]

Serrissa's are among the hardest trees to keep happy. Chances are it is dead or close to. Scratch the bark, and if it's green underneath, then it's not dead. but I hate to say that it will be a real chore to bring back to health, and keep it there.
good luck, and welcome.

 

[vdeschamps]

Thanks guys for the replies! I scratched the bark and I think I could see light green. If it is not dead, what can I try to do to save it? And more importantly, what do you think I did wrong that led me to that?

 

[Ang3lfir3]

as Judy said serissa are hard to keep alive .... chances are you did nothing special to kill it.... they don't like being moved ... watered differently or even looked at funny... if you walk by them wrong they can croak ....

the best thing to do.... don't buy another serissa ... its heartbreak waiting to happen.... as for this one.... honestly.... don't bother... chalk it up to a lesson learned

that prolly sounds harsh, but its not.... its advice to help keep you motivated choose something much easier for the future... sounds like you prefer tropicals and a decent ficus would be more worth the effort and more rewarding ....

 

[JudyB]

The only thing I can suggest (depending on where you are) is to take it outside to live. I had one for a number of years, and as soon as it was warm enough, I took it outside for the summer. It always did better out there. Then it would come inside, and suffer (me too) for the winter. I got tired of it being sick all the time and gave up on it. They are just too finicky if you do not live in the climate that they prefer.

 

[vdeschamps]

I live in Washington, D.C., in an apartment. Because I can only keep bonsais indoors, I picked the Hawaiian tree and then was recommended a Serissa as well...I won't trust that person again

I hesitated between a Serissa and a Ficus or a Fukien Tea. I should have gone with either, but not the Serissa.

I will get rid of it and replace it with something else. When I will have a house with a backyard, I will have many, different trees

 

[jk_lewis]

I'm afraid that "light green" probably isn't a sure enough sign of life.

If I had to guess, you probably overwatered your Serissa from the beginning. When you moved it from the store to your apartment, that was a sudden stress on the plant (as others have said they are touchy). The normal reaction for someone who is new to bonsai and new to Serissa is to water it -- and then to water it some more when the first watering only produces more yellow leaves.

Since your plant was a VERY tiny one to start with, it simply had no reserves to call upon. So, unless you can find, afford, and buy a considerably larger Serissa (and then let the soil dry out between watering), I'd suggest you look at Figs (Ficus -- preferably any one except Ficus bejnamina, which makes very poor bonsai at the best of times.)

Good luck.

 

[JudyB]

or a Fukien Tea. I should have gone with either.

NOOOOO!!! not the dreaded Fukien! These are almost as bad as serrissa.... Do a ficus, they are super easy, and take to inside culture like they were meant to be inside....

There's also Austrailian Brush Cherry, I've heard good things about them for inside trees (no personal experience) and they flower.

There are lots of ficus tree people around who can help you find a good one...

 

[vdeschamps]

I'm afraid that "light green" probably isn't a sure enough sign of life.

If I had to guess, you probably overwatered your Serissa from the beginning. When you moved it from the store to your apartment, that was a sudden stress on the plant (as others have said they are touchy). The normal reaction for someone who is new to bonsai and new to Serissa is to water it -- and then to water it some more when the first watering only produces more yellow leaves.

Since your plant was a VERY tiny one to start with, it simply had no reserves to call upon. So, unless you can find, afford, and buy a considerably larger Serissa (and then let the soil dry out between watering), I'd suggest you look at Figs (Ficus -- preferably any one except Ficus bejnamina, which makes very poor bonsai at the best of times.)

Good luck.

Thanks for the insight! The Serissa was shipped to me from an online store and arrived perfectly fine. I started to use to moisture meter when I got the first tree and monitored how much moisture each tree had very closely. Sometimes I didn't wait long enough for the Serissa to be completely dry.

I'll look into a nice Ficus now to replace the Serissa

 

[treebeard55]

OK, a cross-grained reply

Sorry about your tree, Vincent. I have to agree with Judy and others: serissa is not a good choice for a first tree. Schefflera (umbrella tree) is great, and as Judy said, many Ficus are excellent for beginners and experienced alike. I would suggest F. salicaria (willowleaf fig) or one of the F. microcarpa cultivars.

OK, here's where I go against the current. Serissas are not as easy as some, but they're not impossible, either. One of the main causes of difficulty, I am now convinced, is that we have been taught to treat them as tropical trees, when they are not. They are warm-temperate, and need -- repeat, need -- a cool/cold winter rest. For the last three winters, I have been letting my serissas take some sub-freezing temperatures. For more info, please visit my blog and "Search" the posts on serissas and cold; but briefly, I have found that temperatures down to 28 F don't even result in dropped leaves. My serissas go outside as soon as possible in spring -- they're outdoors now -- and they are doing fine so far.

There are a couple of other possible issues with your serissa. They do not respond well to an episode of drying out; you have to keep a pretty close eye on the soil moisture. And they need pretty bright light. Don't trust your eyes on that point: your eyes adapt too well to different light levels to be good light meters. Next time, put a serissa, if it's indoors, as close to the bulbs as possible.

It's up to you, but I would suggest you give serissa another look after you have a few year's experience under your belt. You might find them quite satisfying.

 

[edprocoat]

Did I Kill My Serissa?

No !!

It was the Butler, in the Kitchen with a butcher knife.

ed

 

[grouper52]

If you killed your Serissa, I believe that's an omen that you will have great luck and talent in bonsai. Every time there's a thread like this somewhere online, the only people who claim to be able to keep their Serissa alive are folks who don't know a root hook from a concave cutter otherwise.

Killing a Serissa allows one to clear out negative bonsai karma, resulting in better fortunes for both you and your trees. Karmically, it's considered a good deed, or at least neutral - no tree wants to go through an entire lifetime struggling as a finicky, sickly little Serissa, so by killing it you have saved it untold suffering, and allowed it to quickly take rebirth as a healthy little ficus or some other happy species.

At the very least, if you're not into the whole karma thing, killing a Serissa should be viewed as a rite of passage and something of a prerequisite for the hobby. Welcome aboard!

 

[vdeschamps]

Sorry about your tree, Vincent. I have to agree with Judy and others: serissa is not a good choice for a first tree. Schefflera (umbrella tree) is great, and as Judy said, many Ficus are excellent for beginners and experienced alike. I would suggest F. salicaria (willowleaf fig) or one of the F. microcarpa cultivars.

OK, here's where I go against the current. Serissas are not as easy as some, but they're not impossible, either. One of the main causes of difficulty, I am now convinced, is that we have been taught to treat them as tropical trees, when they are not. They are warm-temperate, and need -- repeat, need -- a cool/cold winter rest. For the last three winters, I have been letting my serissas take some sub-freezing temperatures. For more info, please visit my blog and "Search" the posts on serissas and cold; but briefly, I have found that temperatures down to 28 F don't even result in dropped leaves. My serissas go outside as soon as possible in spring -- they're outdoors now -- and they are doing fine so far.

There are a couple of other possible issues with your serissa. They do not respond well to an episode of drying out; you have to keep a pretty close eye on the soil moisture. And they need pretty bright light. Don't trust your eyes on that point: your eyes adapt too well to different light levels to be good light meters. Next time, put a serissa, if it's indoors, as close to the bulbs as possible.

It's up to you, but I would suggest you give serissa another look after you have a few year's experience under your belt. You might find them quite satisfying.

Trying a Serissa again is a good suggestion. I don't want to just drop it because I killed the first one - it's, after all, my second bonsai tree!

 

[vdeschamps]

If you killed your Serissa, I believe that's an omen that you will have great luck and talent in bonsai. Every time there's a thread like this somewhere online, the only people who claim to be able to keep their Serissa alive are folks who don't know a root hook from a concave cutter otherwise.

Killing a Serissa allows one to clear out negative bonsai karma, resulting in better fortunes for both you and your trees. Karmically, it's considered a good deed, or at least neutral - no tree wants to go through an entire lifetime struggling as a finicky, sickly little Serissa, so by killing it you have saved it untold suffering, and allowed it to quickly take rebirth as a healthy little ficus or some other happy species.

At the very least, if you're not into the whole karma thing, killing a Serissa should be viewed as a rite of passage and something of a prerequisite for the hobby. Welcome aboard!

I don't believe in karma but I will hope that it's a good sign

 

[grouper52]

treebeard55, you are the exception to my Root-hook-from-a-concave-cutter Rule!

This is great advice. I have been surprised how many supposedly "tropical" trees are quite hardy - I never thought to consider whether serissa might do better if treated as such, but what you say makes sense, and just may be the key to these tempting little guys.

Along similar lines, any advice for Fukien tea trees, another bonsai species with great stylistic potential that - in my humble experience - does marvelously well in China and in tropical greenhouses, but which dies an agonizingly slow, teasing death in collections in America?

 

[jk_lewis]

Another plant that many treat as a hothouse tropical is Podocarpus. Mine stay outside, unprotected, until the mid 20s. they get a sheet tossed over them down to 20 degrees, and come inside during the teens.

 

[vdeschamps]

After reading and looking at picture of the ficus salicaria and ficus microcarpa cultivar, I will get one of each (soon, I hope).

 

[treebeard55]

Thanks, Will. I too think that correction of our winter practices with serissa may result in a lot fewer dead trees and frustrated growers. So do several others, including Jerry Meislik and Carl Rosner, both tropicals specialists. (You saw that if you looked at my blog posts on the topic.)

What's the root-hook-from-concave-cutter rule? Did I manage to dodge being disemboweled?

As for Fukien tea, I backed away from them a few years ago, since they seemed to attract the local mealybugs like publicity attracts a paparazzo. Lately, tho, I decided to try again, with a nice specimen from Wigert's. But I don't have nearly as much to contribute about them as I do about serissa -- not yet, anyway. -- Except that so far, my new Fukien tea is bug-free. Maybe someone else has more experience with them than I do.

 

[vdeschamps]

Thanks, Will. I too think that correction of our winter practices with serissa may result in a lot fewer dead trees and frustrated growers. So do several others, including Jerry Meislik and Carl Rosner, both tropicals specialists. (You saw that if you looked at my blog posts on the topic.)

What's the root-hook-from-concave-cutter rule? Did I manage to dodge being disemboweled?

As for Fukien tea, I backed away from them a few years ago, since they seemed to attract the local mealybugs like publicity attracts a paparazzo. Lately, tho, I decided to try again, with a nice specimen from Wigert's. But I don't have nearly as much to contribute about them as I do about serissa -- not yet, anyway. -- Except that so far, my new Fukien tea is bug-free. Maybe someone else has more experience with them than I do.

Thanks to you, I just discovered Wigert's and they seem to have nice trees! Do you buy from them a lot?