Nursing bonsais back to health

[Emjei]

I have cared for four bonsais now for nearly a year, including a Chinese Elm, Boulevard Cypress, and a flowering bonsai.
I fell ill with a serious health issue in the middle of October, and was sparsely able to water the bonsais. Thankfully it is winter so they require fewer waterings, but there were weeks in a row when I watered them little if not at all.

I am feeling much better now and am back to watering on a regular basis. However, my bonsais have obviously paid the price of neglect. All except the Boulevard have lost their leaves (as the boulevard has needles, and had only two areas of brown which I've removed). The flowering bonsai especially seems brittle. However, when I clipped them all back, they still showed signs of greenness (albeit small in the flowering bonsai) so I am hopeful this means I can nurse them back to health.

I am absolutely desperate for any direction on how to do this. Two of the bonsais were anniversary gifts from my husband, and the others are also very precious. I am really upset that I didn't push myself harder to take care of them when I was ill because I know I would regret it deeply if I couldn't bring them back.

I live in Southern California. Should I bring them indoors for the winter? Keep them near a window? If fertilizer, any particular kind?

Thank you in advance for any help you're able to lend. I desperately want to nurse my trees back and care for them a lot. I'll do whatever it takes.

 

[BigDave]

Em,
Glad you are feeling better.

So time will tell. In so cal Elm will push new growth in the next 30-40 days. Unknown flower heaven only knows. the cypress is not easy in our area anyway, so if weak may decline slowly. Dont panic, bonsai are not precious, no one will love you less if you lose one.

for best success...

Outdoors- full sun, get some of this wet stuff from the sky, will help remedy alkaline soil.

Water - stick a finger in and if it seems not to wet, soak it

Be patient, good luck

big D

 

[DesertPanda]

The only thing I could add about the flowering bonsai (without knowing what kind it is) is when it starts to bloom or put out flowers, I would suggest removing them. Once again, I am not sure what kind of flowering bonsai it is or when it will do this but if you can concentrate the energy that the plant is using to grow flowers into the leaves and such, it may make the difference.

 

[Mac In Oak Ridge]

One thing plants do to cut their losses is to shut down transpiration when there is a long dry spell. To do that they shut down the leaves and the leaves will die and drop. If you are real lucky you got back to them in time to save the roots, trunk and limbs. That be the case then when ever what passes for Spring in California you just may get them budding out again.

The advice to pinch off buds on the flowering one is good. You don't want it expend its scarce energy making flowers and seeds. In a case like this the leaves didn't have the time to send nutrients down to the trunk for storage so there is going to be a struggle for it to come back out.

Watch your watering very carefully. With no activity above ground the roots can rot very quickly. I keep a bamboo chop stick in every pot. When I go out to check the trees I pull the chop stick out and I have a nice cross section of the moisture in the pot. I have never found it productive to dig a finger down to the very bottom of a bonsai pot to see what the moisture level is. If there is any roots at all you can't get to the bottom anyway. A chop stick is pointed and will go all the way to the bottom very readily. Just make sure you don't hit a drain hole and poke the drainage screen out. I hear folks talk about just sticking the chop stick in a pot and leaving it for 5 min or so, I don't find that productive either. If you have fifty trees then you have about 4 hrs. + waiting for something to happen. They are cheap, bags of them at most groceries and if you find an Oriental market you may find them much cheaper there.

You don't want the soil soggy, you want it damp. Try and achieve that as best you can. Your biggest danger right now is root rot until the trees start pushing out new leaves.