BradM
Seed
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Hello all – First post and it’s a doozy! I’ve been reading through a lot of this forum and it appears to be a very knowledgeable/active community so I’m happy to be a part of it.
So we purchased a ‘Shimpaku Juniper Bonsai’ tree just over a month ago from a local nursery. They’re pretty well respected in the area but definitely do not specialize in bonsais. I saw it there on the lot and absolutely had to have it. They didn’t give us much background about it, just that it had been there a few months and was about 20 years old.
Now for the ‘fun’ part. The tree seemed just fine and was growing like crazy. Shoots coming off of just about every branch. I came home from work one night last week and the wife (God bless her) had trimmed it up pretty good. Yes I know – facepalm emoji. We had been talking about doing it and how we’d like to structure it, but not anything about actually doing it. She went to town on it, but in the end did it to make me happy so I’m definitely not mad and she doesn’t think I am mad about it. Disclaimer: I also didn’t know the rules for pruning until recently. Anyway – pinch pinch pinch and here we are.
As you can see, the tips that were cut off (with scissors) are all brown. Which prompted me to take a much closer look inside. As I opened back the tree branches I noticed a bit of yellowing and a lot of older brown needles inside.
I’ll be honest – I hadn’t really even looked inside of it too closely, but once I did I noticed a lot of older loose needles just laying in there (a LOT of them actually) and of course the yellow needles. I cleaned out the loose brown needles (I’m talking handfuls) to let it breathe a little better but that’s about it for now.
We originally re-potted it in what we think is well drained soil as recommended by the nursery. Some sort of regular potting soil combo with peat moss (as they directed at the nursery). I don’t think it’s over or underwatered. If anything, it’s been maybe a little underwatered as we recently had a pretty hot stretch of a week of dry 80’s-90 here in south-central PA, but again felt like we were keeping it watered well enough.
So here are my thoughts. Interested in what you all might think:
PS. Please don’t hold back.. This was probably not the best tree to start with into the bonsai world as it is rather large and was a little pricey, but that’s one way to learn a lesson I suppose.
So we purchased a ‘Shimpaku Juniper Bonsai’ tree just over a month ago from a local nursery. They’re pretty well respected in the area but definitely do not specialize in bonsais. I saw it there on the lot and absolutely had to have it. They didn’t give us much background about it, just that it had been there a few months and was about 20 years old.
Now for the ‘fun’ part. The tree seemed just fine and was growing like crazy. Shoots coming off of just about every branch. I came home from work one night last week and the wife (God bless her) had trimmed it up pretty good. Yes I know – facepalm emoji. We had been talking about doing it and how we’d like to structure it, but not anything about actually doing it. She went to town on it, but in the end did it to make me happy so I’m definitely not mad and she doesn’t think I am mad about it. Disclaimer: I also didn’t know the rules for pruning until recently. Anyway – pinch pinch pinch and here we are.
As you can see, the tips that were cut off (with scissors) are all brown. Which prompted me to take a much closer look inside. As I opened back the tree branches I noticed a bit of yellowing and a lot of older brown needles inside.
I’ll be honest – I hadn’t really even looked inside of it too closely, but once I did I noticed a lot of older loose needles just laying in there (a LOT of them actually) and of course the yellow needles. I cleaned out the loose brown needles (I’m talking handfuls) to let it breathe a little better but that’s about it for now.
We originally re-potted it in what we think is well drained soil as recommended by the nursery. Some sort of regular potting soil combo with peat moss (as they directed at the nursery). I don’t think it’s over or underwatered. If anything, it’s been maybe a little underwatered as we recently had a pretty hot stretch of a week of dry 80’s-90 here in south-central PA, but again felt like we were keeping it watered well enough.
So here are my thoughts. Interested in what you all might think:
- Did we harm this tree beyond repair with the trimming?
- From all I’ve read I’m assuming the needles with brown tips will all die.
- I did notice a few red spider mites beneath the pot, but didn’t see any on the tree itself. I sprayed all the branches pretty good. Those things are always running around on this particular patio for some reason.
- Should we be concerned about the yellowing beneath the outer layer? I have been reading threads about this and it appears it could be the natural shedding that apparently these junipers do this time of year, but honestly I don’t know if they were that way when we got it. The thing looked healthy.
- I understand that yellowing sometimes means it’s either under or over-watered. Trust me I will be paying way more attention to the watering moving forward.
- Which brings me to my last concern: After a bit more research it appears we didn’t use the recommended “bonsai” soil. While repotting, the roots looked fine and it appeared they actually did use some sort of potting soil in the old pot, which it had been in for 3-4 years they said. For that reason, it didn’t sound off any alarms about using another type of soil. Would it be a bad idea to add bonsai soil now or would that stress the tree even more? Would it be worth digging it out to check the roots again? Or again – stress…
- Finally – one thing we haven’t done yet is add fertilizer to the tree. Any recommendations on what to use?
PS. Please don’t hold back.. This was probably not the best tree to start with into the bonsai world as it is rather large and was a little pricey, but that’s one way to learn a lesson I suppose.
