I am new to caring for a bonsai and have a rather fluid life of travel. I can not tell if my tree is under watered or over watered. Any help would be appreciated! The leaves are very brittle and fall of easily. I do not know if it is a watering problem or if it is a season change. I know the variety is a podocarpus (spelling not sure) but I haven’t been able to find a whole lot of info on it!

Your tree looks like it's dead tbh

herbonsai wrote:

Your tree looks like it's dead tbh

Yup

Unfortunately it was a Podocarpus..
Now is wood for the fireplace.

I think it was underwatered, there must have been a point in time where the soil got to dry

I've had the same problem with my podocarpus when i bought it. It seems like the company i bought my tree from did not provide the optimal care so some leafs were very dry. What you can try is to give it a good bath, take the pot and sink it in a water bucket (do not put the whole tree in water, only few mm above soil level) for about 5 minutes. Usually a podocarpus needs to be watered once every 2-3 days, maybe even once a day during summer time, it all depends on where you live. I am not sure if the tree is dead yet but it is worth trying everything you can. Keep us updated!