First Deshojo not doing great, panicking, please help

[gabemartini]

Hello, hive mind of Bonsainut! I'm in a bit of a pickle and could really use some advice.

For context, I'm in London, UK, zone 9b. We had a slight heatwave last week, but now we're back to around 20-21°C. My trees are on a NE-facing balcony with a canopy, getting about 4 hours of direct morning sun and an hour of afternoon sun. I'm a beginner and only have some experience with evergreens.

I bought a Deshojo maple in the first week of June from a nursery. The tips of the leaves were quite brown, but most of the other leaves seemed fine. The nursery gave me a whole spiel about watering and evaporation during heatwaves (though there hadn't been one in the UK at the time) and assured me this was normal. They advised me to defoliate the worst leaves and assured me it would bounce back in a few weeks. This was around mid-June, and I only removed a handful of the worst leaves.
Fast forward to today, and all the leaves have severe browning. At first, I thought I was under-watering, but I never let it dry out completely. I water only when the surface soil feels like it's about to dry up but is still moist, which can be every 2-3 days. Britain's quite damp, and since the plant doesn't get sun all day, the water takes time to evaporate. However, every piece of advice online says to water when it starts to dry up, which apparently means daily or even twice daily in summer. This baffles me because the soil still feels wet after the first day.
Then I wondered if the morning sun was too harsh, even though it's only morning sun. I moved the plant about a week or two ago to a spot on the balcony where it gets brightness but no direct light, yet the browning continues.

Now I'm thinking... am I overwatering? The soil seems to be either very broken down Akadama or a general bonsai mix from the nursery that's more like mud. The pot is tiny so it should dry up really fast....? I'm quite confused at this point and in need of some advice by people who aren't dumbasses like me.

Attaching some photos of the disheveled thing. Also, the soil is wet because it rained in the morning at like 9am. It's 4.30pm now when the photos have been taken.

Should I just let it be? should i water it more? should i stop watering it? Should i repot it now in early July(blasphemous)? Should I burn it in a pyre and go cry in a corner?

Help!

 

[Orion_metalhead]

It appears to be suffering from over watering. If the tree was not looking great to begin with, id bring it back and ask for a refund if possible.

Water when the soil is dry about 1/2" down in the pot.

Looks like a lot of algae growth which is a sign of overwatering. Flat bottomed pots do not evaporate water as fast.

 

[namnhi]

It does look like the media is staying too wet but could just be from your recent watering before taking the photos. The current leaves are toast so not much anything you can do about it. I would put the tree in a shady spot and not water it until the soil is a bit dry... I would stay on the dry side a bit more than wet since the trees doesn't have that many leaves to transpire the water. It should set new buds in a couple of weeks. You can check Peter Chan's from Heron on what he did to the maples that got the leaves dried out.

 

[Orion_metalhead]

Maybe this was purchased at Herons because the media looks similar to Chan's with the high level of sphagnum in the soil around the base.

 

[TomB]

That looks as though it’s staying too wet. You probably also have fungal problems on the leaves (which is very common and can look very much like sun damage). I’d consider spraying with a fungicide (anything from the garden centre) as well as keeping it a bit dryer.

 

[crab apple]

Im not familiar with your climate but where I live 9A isn't a good enviorment for Japanese maples, maybe red maples or tridents but the rest are hard to grow in zone 9, sure ppl are doing it but it takes specal care and a lot of experience. Less sun and more shade for starters.

 

[leatherback]

Im not familiar with your climate but where I live 9A isn't a good enviorment for Japanese maples, maybe red maples or tridents but the rest are hard to grow in zone 9, sure ppl are doing it but it takes specal care and a lot of experience. Less sun and more shade for starters.

Why do you give advice on something you do not and cannot grow?

 

[leatherback]

What is the green thing sitting in the pot? If it is some fertilizer, remove it immediately. FErtilizer is NOT a good thing when a tree is struggling.

As mentioned before, looks like wet roots => Root tips die off => tree suffers

Best course of action is to tell the nursery to fix this, assuming this is also roughly how you got it. And learn to never buy plants that are not fit, unless you know how to get them back to health. (A great deal is only a great deal if the tree lives)

Second best course of action IF IT WERE MINE would be to take it out of the pot. Gently shake off loose substrate, remove any roots that are clearly unhealthy WITHOUT GOING OVERBOARD, and repotting it into good quality open substrate. Then water once well through, and only water again once the top visible layer has dried.

 

[crab apple]

So other people can learn from it and not have to follow the same mistakes is usually the reason for that.

 

[leatherback]

So other people can learn from it and not have to follow the same mistakes is usually the reason for that.

But you have no experience growing it..
UK 9 is a bit different climate from Florida 9.

USDA 9 merely means that you only get light frost. Which is perfectly fine for maple. It sais nothing about the summer heat & humidity which is probably why in Florida maples do poorly. It is not about the winter minimum.

Pretty much all of UK has perfect climate for Japanese maples, except maybe for the northernmost & exposed higher areas..

 

[gabemartini]

Hey everyone thanks for chiming in! I really appreciate you guys taking the time to look at this and help a noob out.

Yeah i agree with you all that it’s def overwatered. Also if i sniff the pot, it gives off a slight algae smell (not a bad smell) which i think confirms it? I hadn’t really noticed the green until yall pointed out the algae growing. Yesterday was super stressful because it’s been raining none stop (it is still raining) and i had to construct a make shift shelter using plastic bags to try and keep it from getting even more wet.

Will keep you posted on what happens, so that at least the post has a conclusion so it is useful for future dumbasses like me

 

[gabemartini]

What is the green thing sitting in the pot? If it is some fertilizer, remove it immediately. FErtilizer is NOT a good thing when a tree is struggling.

As mentioned before, looks like wet roots => Root tips die off => tree suffers

Best course of action is to tell the nursery to fix this, assuming this is also roughly how you got it. And learn to never buy plants that are not fit, unless you know how to get them back to health. (A great deal is only a great deal if the tree lives)

Second best course of action IF IT WERE MINE would be to take it out of the pot. Gently shake off loose substrate, remove any roots that are clearly unhealthy WITHOUT GOING OVERBOARD, and repotting it into good quality open substrate. Then water once well through, and only water again once the top visible layer has dried.

Hey, thanks for this.

Like you and others have suggested i will start talks with the seller and see what we can do about it.

The green stuff i think is either moss or alage, unless you’re referring to something else (sorry i’m severely colourblind so not 100% sure if there’s anything else green on the image, also the reason why i hadn’t notice the algae before). If it’s anything else on the top dressing I did remove all the little pieces of gravel and pebles from the top to see if that helps evaporation, but also out of fear that there might have been sprinkled fertiliser in it.

And an emergency repot def does sounds sensible in this situation. I was looking at a bunch of yt videos last night and i saw a few that deal with off season repotting of maples which gave me a more confidence to tackle it. (I actually think they might have been yours, cause i’ve just now noticed the link in your signature! but not 100% sure you’re the person from that yt channel, apologies if you’re not).

Definitely learned my lesson to not buy trees that aren’t in tiptoe shape ):

I guess starting out i don’t really know any better, so everything is a learning curve.

Anyway appreciate you all taking the time and helping out, will keep u posted.

 

[gabemartini]

That looks as though it’s staying too wet. You probably also have fungal problems on the leaves (which is very common and can look very much like sun damage). I’d consider spraying with a fungicide (anything from the garden centre) as well as keeping it a bit dryer.

Heh this could very well also be true! The UK is weird with fungicides, we have like a ton of regulations around them.

The Royal Horticultural Society has like a list of legally available ones and it’s not very extensive. Most of the time bonsai documentation mentions stuff that isn’t legally available here which makes it really difficult to figure out what i should use. Any of the ones here ring any bells? https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/pdfs/fungicides-for-home-gardeners.pdf

I mostly survive off a copper based spray and neem oil like a hippie, none of which have been applied to this tree fyi i do have a systemic one from the list (triticonazol based one) but i’m worried that a systemic fungicide will just stress the tree out more in its current stage.

 

[TomB]

I think the ‘green thing’ in question is the plastic thing with the round top. Is it a moisture meter or something?

 

[gabemartini]

I think the ‘green thing’ in question is the plastic thing with the round top. Is it a moisture meter or something?

Oh LMAO SORRY no that’s a light meter… AND I THOUGHT IT WAS GREY NOT GREEN . I move it around some of my plants just to calculate the daily light intake the plant receives at a certain positions around the balcony during different times of the year. I don’t have the best growing situation with it being a balcony with a canopy and also being NE facing, so I’m currently keeping track of light so i can better assess where certain plants should be positioned to maximise what i got.

Also now that i have you, i replied to your fungicide message but it included an external link so the message is up for moderation approval, i assume it will be approved later, it’s just a link to the RHS’s list of approved fungicides to see if any of them rang a bell sorry for the delay

 

[TomB]

Oh LMAO SORRY no that’s a light meter… AND I THOUGHT IT WAS GREY NOT GREEN . I move it around some of my plants just to calculate the daily light intake the plant receives at a certain positions around the balcony during different times of the year. I don’t have the best growing situation with it being a balcony with a canopy and also being NE facing, so I’m currently keeping track of light so i can better assess where certain plants should be positioned to maximise what i got.

Also now that i have you, i replied to your fungicide message but it included an external link so the message is up for moderation approval, i assume it will be approved later, it’s just a link to the RHS’s list of approved fungicides to see if any of them rang a bell sorry for the delay

Pretty much any fungicide spray from the garden centre would help. Roseclear or Provanto or something. I personally use a biological product instead but the regular chemical sprays are OK too.

 

[gabemartini]

Pretty much any fungicide spray from the garden centre would help. Roseclear or Provanto or something. I personally use a biological product instead but the regular chemical sprays are OK too.

Oh great!!! Was worried that i needed some sort of specialist one! And sorry i didn't clock you were from the UK (used my phone for the earlier messages and in mobile view it hides the location tag). It doesn't let me delete the pending message so please ignore it if/when it gets posted, but exactly what you just awnsered is was i was looking for!!
Again many thanks, yall great

 

[Paradox]

Hope it pulls through for you. It's a nice little tree

 

[leatherback]

I see no reason for a fungicide tbh.
As for shelther for the tree, next time: You can just put the pot in a plastic bag and tie it around the trunk if you get prolongued rain and you want to minimize water added to the pot.

Tilting the pot slightly can help it drain.

 

[gabemartini]

Hello! Just wanted to do a quick update bc sometimes these posts never get a conclusion and I find it extremely frustrating when i’m searching for information and end up in a forum and then there’s some advice given but you never know what the outcome was haha

So, after seeking advice here (thanks everyone!) and realising it was a water issue, i did the emergency repot like @leatherback suggested. I didn’t have another pot at the time so i literally just took it out, removed as much as i could of the clay-like soil without disturbing the roots too much, and repotted it in the same pot with APL 2:1:1.

After this, things kinda went a bit more downhill, the remaining leaves fully browned and fell off one by one during the rest of summer, leaving the tree bare. It attempted to grow a few more leaves here and there, but they also browned when they were no bigger that a couple of millimetres. However this was probably bc we were already approaching autumn.



At this point i didn’t know if the tree was dead, but i kept on managing the watering, sheltering it when it was raining for more than a few days, etc.

I was holding my breath, and now in spring it managed to wake up and produce new leaves!

I do think it lost a lot of the ramifications, but i am happy that the tree is alive.



I think my plan now is to let it be during this growing season and see which parts are fully dead, and then next year probably try and do a bit more root work to remove some more of the clay still in the rootball (i didn’t want to disturb it too much when i did the emergency repot) and maybe get it in a larger pot or wooden box!

Anyway, I definitely learned my lesson. Make sure you get healthy trees from your nurseries! I now have PTSD and i’m afraid of getting more maple trees because of this whole ordeal

Thanks again everyone, and especially @leatherback for the emergency repot recommendation. That essentially what saved the tree.