Hey guys!

I know you're sick of people asking about Chinese Elm dropping leaves, but I'm worried about it so I'll ask anyway.

My tree is placed on the threshold of the terrace. It is way too sunny and hot outside to keep it there (It gets 40'C these days, with scorching sunshine followed by rainstorms. It still gets fresh air. It also gets sun in the morning, from 7AM to 10AM.

My tree started dropping leaves couple of weeks ago. It wasn't too bad, but I noticed tiny dot-like insects moving on the back-side of the leaves. After further inspection of the insects of the fallen leaves, I determined (based on info from forums) that these are spider mites. Since the leaf drop increased, I decided to treat the tree.

In the local bonsai shop I was advised to use a combination of soil (Mospilan) and spray (Potassium oleate - soap) pesticide. I used the Mospilan on the soil once, and sprayed the leaves three times, keeping the five day periods in between the sprayings. While we tried to spray the leaves gently, the leave drop actually increased after the sprayings.It kept on losing leaves, despite us watering in carefully. Many of the new sprouts go brown and fall down before becoming leaves.

We visited the bonsai shop again, and they advised to cover the tree with a bag for the night, with some water evaporating under it for the night, and to try a different fertilizer - Biogold. Despite our efforts the tree keeps losing a lot of leaves every day.

What should we do, guys? :\

Post a picture

Spider mites thrive under dry conditions. So for starters, every evening spray the tree with a shower-head on your garden hose. Tilt the pot, so the run-off largely goes to the ground. Added benefit is that spider mites flush away from the foliage. Keep the plant in only mornning sun. Avoid too much wind.

If the soil is messy, you can move it into a larger pot, but show some pictures before you do that, I would say.

Suriimurii wrote:

I know you're sick of people asking about Chinese Elm dropping leaves,

I think we're more tired about people not doing any kind of homework, that decided one day they were going to do bonsai, purchased something of which they do not know what it is and how to take care for it, have not done ANY research and have not checked the forum for similar questions.

So, that's not you.

Picture would be nice, indeed.

So, these are the before / after pictures of the tree.

And here are the pictures of the leaves and the soil:

And now I'm wondering if you really did check other threads.

That soil... am I right that's pretty compact black soil with only a thin layer of akadama on top?

Nice rock!

So, about the soil.

The compact soil is the original soil we got with the plant five months ago.
We decided to keep it in it's original soil until next year, not to disturb the plant too much.
It was developing really well, while we were using liquid fertilizer with it, up until two weeks ago, when we noticed the leaves falling and the mites.

We added the acadama and started to fertilize with 'biogold' after the mite thing and at the advice of the bonsai shop.
The acadama is about three layers deep, we just moved it around for the picture so that the soil under it is visible.

So, where did we screw up?

it IS a nice rock, thank you very much!

Suriimurii wrote:

The compact soil is the original soil we got with the plant five months ago

Looks very compact and very wet. By the looks of it, you have overwatered it and you have hard water.

We added the acadama

Why? Adding akadama on top of the soil serves no purpose (unless when you do it for aesthatic reasons, which I don't think is the case here).

Nice rock indeed. It would look good with a bonsai next to it.

- Check the guidelines for your elm
- Repot it in a properly draining soil - that distributes the water evenly
- Do not fertilize after repotting, wait a while
- Put it outside in a good location (no full sun, at least until it's growing again)
- Read the other topics about elms dropping leaves. They will have the same advice or probably even better advice