Chinese Elm concerns

[Treemendously_Small_Trees]

Hello all. Short time lurker, first time poster.

Was gifted a Chinese Elm for my birthday last September and somehow managed to get it through winter. Chuffed with myself I decided to repot at the start of this month as the old soil was regular compost. Repotting seemed to go well, nothing died, no leaves fell. Photo below is the day of said repot.



The last couple of days I have noticed something worrying with some of the leaves. They have gone pale, almost white and eventually drop off. It has 22C shade until about 3pm where the full sun comes around and is currently at 33C. From what I have read those temps should be perfectly fine. I water every other day at the moment.





I'm thinking maybe lack of nutrients as I have only given it a small amount of organic slow release fert 3 weeks ago and nothing else. I was planning on giving it water soluble balanced feed weekly starting tomorrow.

 

[NOZZLE HEAD]

My guess is a nitrogen deficiency.

The balanced water soluble fertilizer is a good plan.

Seaweed based products often help reduce ethylene.

 

[AaronThomas]

Leaves look yellow to me...
I have experienced elms dropping leaves when I have repotted them while they were already leafed out.
In fact I’m dealing with this with a tree a nursery tree I reported about 6 weeks ago...tree looked great for a month then all of a sudden leave turned yellow and fell off. I placed the tree in dappled sun about a week ago and the tree seems to be perking back up again with new buds....
I think your tree is just getting use to it’s new digs....elms are tough as nails. Lay off the ferts for a bit and maybe place in a spot with dappled sun.... should be fine.
Good luck!

 

[Orion_metalhead]

Agree with the above post. I would water daily, personally.

 

[AZbonsai]

Sun is not the issue for sure. Mine see 43c + and have no problems. Mine follow same pattern when I repot. I just shake the yellow leaves out and it drives on. Should be fine. I use fish emulsion for fert. During hotter summer temps if you want to go that route.

 

[Treemendously_Small_Trees]

Agree with the above post. I would water daily, personally.

Regardless of weather? (apart from heavy rain of course)

 

[vaibatron]

Looks perfectly normal.

What medium did you repot in?

The only advice I would give is to not be so tied to a watering regiment. There are a lot of factors to consider when determining if a tree needs watering. But the short answer is when the soil is dry lol. That may not necessarily be every other day.

Especially after repotting, you may want to keep a closer eye on the watering. Even more so if you did considerable root pruning as to not encourage any fungal issues.

 

[AaronThomas]

Your substrate looks good...
As long as its free draining you will probably need to water daily... except during heavy rain lol.
IF your finding your substrate is super wet then next day skip it... but it shouldn't be.

 

[Orion_metalhead]

Regardless of weather? (apart from heavy rain of course)

If the soil is free draining, yeah. I would only not water if you had heavy rain the night before. I am watering every morning now again... and in summer once before work in the morning around 7am and once after work... except for pines... they are treated differently

 

[sorce]

If it didn't drop leaves over winter.....

It's probly just tired.

Sorce