My gf gave me a ten year old Chinese Elm bonsai for xmas a couple years ago. I kept it indoors, and I weighed it for when it was time to water it, but it lost a bunch of leaves the second year and didn't recover. It seems I was letting it get too dry and lots of leaf buds died.

I put it outside a couple months ago (I am in Seattle, WA, US) and it seemed to be doing OK, although very few of the leaves have regrown. Just now I checked and some of the small leaves and twigs at the very top of the tree were dead and easily broke off. I really don't know what to do. I'll provide more info if requested.

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Hi, and welcome to the empire.

If you have had it outside till now.. It is winter. What is the weather like in Seattle. Here we just had a bout of -10 and snow. I think Seatle normally gets colder then germany? Then trees loose their foliage. So that might be all there is to it.

That being said.. Chinese elm are - as far as I know- only winter hardy till about -5c. So you need to protect it once it gets really cold.

thanks for the response. it doesn't often get too much below 0 degrees C here, so when it does, it is pushing the weather tolerance of this tree.... that leads to my next question, should i be wintering it in a darkened outside area until spring (i have a sort of storage shed built into the outside of my apartment that i could put it in), or cover it with a clear plastic bag at all times (or just when it drops below -5C)?

Just leave it outside untill it gets really cold. Do make sure you swith to a better ssubstrate in early spring, else you will eventually get problems with the roots.