They will even die faster than some years, in a month it can be done with it, junipers are really outdoor trees!

Thanks for the advice James,

One more question, the species of juniper you think mine might be, is that considered a Japanese juniper or a chinese juniper?

sorry very new to everything plants.. but I do appreciate the art of bonsai and excited to get further into it and develop some basic skills.

will let the try adjust outside for a few more weeks and then take some more photos and see if you guys think it is the same, improving or deteriorating further.

my biggest fear is further deterioration without me even noticing. I am red/green colorblind and find it very hard to see any change in color of foilage etc, it was actually my sister who pointed out the tree was looking different/pale.

leatherback wrote:

The white stuff is scale. It is caused by a buildup of calcium carbonates, due to watering with hard water. Use rainwater or boiled water. This may also cause the yellow leaves. Scale buildup will affect the roots.

yea I just water with tap water while it was living inside.. same water I drink

It is outside now and gets just rain water, im not giving it any additional water yet.. since it is quite moist here/drizzles and rains a lot.

Should I do anything to it? james may suggested some oil? I have just been rubbing it off with my finger, there was some on the tree trunk but it just rubbed off.. the rock I have left and i have removed most of the moss that was covering the tree, i'll put moss back on once tree looks healthier I think.

Pinkham wrote:

No matter what anyone tells you, this tree needs to stay outside like James May stated. Many bonsai sellers tell people that junipers can be grown inside. They will die after a few years.

yea it was a gift from my girlfriend for my birthday last year - it came with a little instruction pamphlet which did say indoor/outdoor didn't matter and that it didn't even need constant sunlight, that it could go without sunlight for a day or two if you wanted to display it somewhere. So I did that for about the last year. I may have overwatered it too but i tried not too, anyway - think I've found some better advice and knowledge here at bonsai empire shoulda googled it sooner eh!

will see if it bounces back! will be watching it over the next few weeks and see if I need to do more if it deteriorates anymore.

id agree with james an its a juniper procumbens nana. as for the color blindness that makes it tough to tell if you are watering a dead tree if you run your fingers over the branches lightly the dead ends will fall off quite easily .procumbens often will die back a little its normal. maybe then you can get an idea of the color differance

This is a nice little tree you have here! It does look healthy and there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it. However junipers are known for letting branches that don't catch enough sunlight to die-back. If you haven't pruned it for a few months, this is probably what you are experiencing. If you don't want a branch to die-back there are two things you can do. You could re-position the branch so that it catches more sunlight or you could prune back other area's. In bonsai it is common to do a combination of the two.

In spring, we thin out all the foliage so that sunlight can pass through it. We basically remove all the shoots that are growing in places where you don't want foliage or that are growing directly downwards and pinch back ones that are growing upward. The tree won't benefit from this foliage so it can be removed safely. After the cleaning we wire the tree all the way and position each branch so that it catches the most sunlight (The nice foliage pads). During the growing season we keep pinching back excessively long shoots to a few mm below the foliage surface to stimulate back-budding. We also keep removing the shoots that are growing downwards. Keep the tree in full sunlight all the time.

If you do this, you'll be able to keep you tree healthy without loosing it's shape and keep the foliage compact and close to the trunk. However, you must become acquainted with basic bonsai techniques such as wiring and pruning to do this properly. A beginners bonsai course could help you with this.
Good Luck!

cheers for that, yea I know very little about wiring and pruning so will have to learn all that.

Will see if there are local courses.. otherwise will have to expand my knowledge online hehe.