Hello everyone,

I´ve been ignorantly living with a bonsai tea tree for over 2 years just watering it, but now i´ve realised how silly of me it was not to take care os it properly. It is about 10 y.o. and since January i´ve noticed an abnormal leaf faliing, to the point that the tree lost half of the leaves. Last month I cut the whole brunch as it dried with green leaves on it (also dry). They didn´t even get yellow. Yesterday I cut aouther huge brunch.....with the same problem. At this moment my tree looks like it doesn´t want to live any more. I went to she bonsai shop, got some vitamins, special mix for transplantation and a bigger pot, but i´ve been told i can transplant it only in mid april till mid may. The person i was talking to wasn´t too convincing so I decided to get an opinion of someone who maybe knew better. Please help me to save my little tree. Thanks you very much.

Maybe feed it with a better feed. And try not to remove any more branches.

once it has possibly recovered I would repot into a better soil. it may also be pot bound for a while. we may need more info on your regeme. most likely to be underwatering.

fertiliser will not help whilst it is stressed, you need to get the watering right, that sounds like the root cause, and good light is essential.

Just repot it.

The Nike motto of the bonsai world.

bob wrote: Maybe feed it with a better feed. And try not to remove any more branches.

once it has possibly recovered I would repot into a better soil. it may also be pot bound for a while. we may need more info on your regeme. most likely to be underwatering.

Thank you for your reply.

I didn´t pay much attantion to it inicially as the lady who works here was just watering it once a week draining it quite well. It was ok till this january, and it even had tiny fruit (6 of them) last summer. It almost always had nice white blooms. Now I am watering it myself once a week too, but make sure it is all moist, but not standing in water. My biggest doubt is the light. The lady in the shop told it needed light, but not the direct exposure, so I have it in the kitchen, behind the curtain. Now I read some thing on this site, and some other place saying exactly opposite - that the tree needs loads of direct light. I live in Portugal, and the climate here is quite worm, if it stays in the sun it might probably be exposed to 20/25ºC heat now in spring and 28/35ºC in summer. Do you think it will be able to handle this kind of heat? Should I put it right in the sun?

m5eaygeoff wrote: fertiliser will not help whilst it is stressed, you need to get the watering right, that sounds like the root cause, and good light is essential.

Thank you.

So should I remove the suplement? Looks like it is not working anyway...

Auk wrote: Just repot it.

"Just do it!" nice one

I´m afraide it will be too much stress for it now....isn´t it?

bob wrote: The Nike motto of the bonsai world.

no fear, no doubts - "yes we can!"

Lana2016 wrote:

Auk wrote: Just repot it.

I´m afraide it will be too much stress for it now....isn´t it?

It is in quite a bit of stress now. Isn't it ?