I was wandering around Home Depot this morning and was looking at their bonsai for sale. I picked this one up but cannot seem to identify it. The tag says grown by Costa Farms so I went to their website. I only has two listed(Ligustrum Privet and Fukien Tea). I am thinking Ligustrum but would like a second opinion.

Please share some photos here!

This is a fukien tea tree or carmona. It will most likelly be dead within 6 months. If you make it longer, please come back and tell us the secret.

It's people like YOU who make new members not want to participtate. I have been doing bonsai for over 20 years and am easily more capable than you of keeping this tree alive for many years. I have never purchased a tree from a big box store and was not familiar with this species. [edited by moderator].

That is obviously not an accepted behaiviour in a discussion forum. We talk trees, not people here. Your post will be reviewed by moderator.

Wow, 20 years! I only have 7 years of experience. Got my first carmona last summer and it is still allive. It is suffering, but still alive. Growing bonsai for me is about development, not struggling to keep things alive. We see 100s of dieing carmonas every year in this forum and so far no well developed tree.

I am looking forward for following your endaveours with this species.

Tropfrog wrote:

This is a fukien tea tree or carmona. It will most likelly be dead within 6 months. If you make it longer, please come back and tell us the secret.

Wow, did I miss something? I was seeing this photo and thought, wow this tree's got some potential. Why would it die within 6 months?

@Jesse - it is probably planted in horrible soil. So what I would do is repot it in proper bonsai soil (or anything that drains well) and make sure to use a pot with drainage holes in it. Don't prune/wire. Just keep it healthy for the next year or so and take it from there.
As for species, I think Tropfrog might be right but Im not 100% sure - perhaps google for leaves of carmona and compare to your tree.

Oscar wrote:

Tropfrog wrote:

This is a fukien tea tree or carmona. It will most likelly be dead within 6 months. If you make it longer, please come back and tell us the secret.

Wow, did I miss something? I was seeing this photo and thought, wow this tree's got some potential. Why would it die within 6 months?

I did not say it will die in 6 months. I said that it will MOST LIKELLY die in 6 months. The reason for me saying this is the 100s of threads about fukien dieing in this forum and no success story revealed.

I do hope that someone can solve the mystery and share the solution. I do what I can to to be that one.

jesse254 wrote:

It's people like YOU who make new members not want to participtate. [edited by moderator].

Thanks for letting me know that.

It is YOU that despite 20 year in the hobby still buying trees without knowing what species they are.

I think that some species have a high survival rate and some have low. If 1 out of 100 fukien teas survives, then eventually one will. The one I inherited from my sister in law is alive, looks scraggly, and I have had it for two years now, so maybe this is the 1 out of 100. Maybe I get no credit if this is the one.

BTW, in the modern world there is encouragement made to be positive about comments, which is good. However, this has been taken to an extreme so that it is very easy to interpret anything negative as a massive personal attack. Combine this with the idea from the 70s that my opinion is just as good as your opinion, no matter what facts may say, and the result is retaliatory personal attacks against perceived personal attacks.

In the 21st century the best we can do when we encounter someone who reacts this way is just ignore him/her. Once the personal attack mode is on, everything will be perceived as a personal attack and the reaction will heterodyne.

This is a shame.