Hello everyone!

I and my GF are first-time bonsai growers and started to notice that our little guy has started to wilt a bit. Does anyone have any ideas on why this may be and how to save it? Are we watering it too much, too little? Do we need to prune the wilted parts?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Where are you located?
How often you water it?
Is it indoors or outdoors?

We are located in Southern California.

For watering, we usually will water it then wait till the soil looks dry on top and then water it again, which can take around two to three days if we keep it on a window seal. and about a day if we have it outside.

We will usually put it outside once every couple of days for 8 hours.

Thatguyminib wrote: Hello everyone!

I and my GF are first-time bonsai growers

Well.. no, you are not. You are not growing a bonsai. You are growing a seedling.

Don't move it around, it is not a puppy. Trees do not move.

Like I said it is our first time. We don't know much.

Where do you suggest we keep it to grow? In a window seal, outside or away from a window?

First, just forget the iidea that you are growing a bonsai. You are not. You are trying to grow a tree. Trees belong outdoors.

Bonsai require good startibg material. Start studying amd in some 15 years, this plant may become good material - if it survives, which I doubt.

Alright, so I have a few questions.

What do you mean by starting material?

What books/websites would you recommend for us to read?

Thank you for the outside tip. We will keep it outside and I will do some research to figure out if we should keep it in a shaded or unshaded area here in southern California.

California is full of bonsai societies and other organizations. FInd some group that has regular meetings, go listen to them talk about what they do, ask them where they get material, etc.

That will be a much better way to find out how to do all this stuff than typing a question at a time here.

If you look at almost any tree called a bonsai the trunk is way thicker than a seedling. You can get nursery plants ten years old with decent trunks, etc. Let the seedling grow while you go to the meetings and find stuff to work on in the woods or at the nurseries.

Thatguyminib wrote: What do you mean by starting material?

Contrary to what many people seem to believe, bonsai are NOT created by keeping seedlings small.
It is not impossible to create a bonsai from seed, but it takes ages. you need to grow a decent tree first, that becomes your starting material. That can take 15 years before you have what's called a pre-bonsai.

What books/websites would you recommend for us to read?

This website. Search the forum, Clicio recently posted a list with recommended books. Interesting websites are shared here often as well.

Seems you have no clue about what bonsai is and what it takes. Start looking at images (Google search), search Youtube videos, go to a bonsai exhibition to get an idea about the time, horticultural skills, talent and knowledge it takes.