Hello everyone!

I am in dire need of assistance. Allow me to tell you a small story about my bonsai.

I bought him a year and a half ago. At that time I was living in a country with dry and sunnier weather. We've repotted him in last November. We barely left any of his old roots, just the main ones, because he was badly potbound. He started growing new shoots immediately. In March we moved to Ireland and we took him in a god damn shoebox and pruned him quite a bit. After we settled into our home, he grew up lush, green, and wonderful as he always was.

We noticed some spider webs and we quickly removed him from the window and got him into our room. In that time, we noticed he started growing sad. As in, his leaves had lost their vitality in a way. We checked and he was UBER potbound again. We found perfect bonsai compost from Herons and we repotted him. In took us three weeks to find good compost. In that time he developed these weird yellow spots on his leaves as you can see in the picture. I did not notice any rot as I repotted him. I also placed a small layer of volcanic stone at the bottom of the pot.

It's been 3 weeks and I didn't notice the yellow spots disappear. Also, he is trying to grow new shoots but they come out either small and yellow completely, or they are out of shape, bent, almost sticking to the branches. His leaves are no longer clear oval, they are...deformed. We checked his bark and it is green and beautiful! We also fed him twice, once before we repotted him, and once after repotting him (a week and a half later).

Please, please help! We've been through so much with this magnificent tree. We do not know how to help him further. We bought grow lamps and we are leaving them from 5PM to 1AM.

Thank you! I hope that someone is able to offer some great insight.

Could you please post a picture?
It helps.

There you go:

imgur.com/a/cvZjQAZ

Thank you!!

It sounds like your tree has been grown indoors recently. Do you have a space where you might be able to let the tree stand outside? Natural light might help, since often when trees are grown inside, they don’t get quite enough light to grow. Being outside might also help with an infestation if you feel like your tree has one. The elements, predatory insects, and spraying the tree with water can all help remove pests.

If you feel like pests are the cause, neem oil spray can also help, and it is less toxic than some other sprays.

If you cannot place your tree outside, grow lights can help, which it sounds like you are already using. Check the manufacturer’s recommendations, however, as some lights need to be on for up to 12 hours to give plants enough energy to grow.

Hope this helps.

from what you wrote, you moved it from a place where it was growing well (window in your room) to somewhere else. did the problems start at that window, or did you just have spider webs? were they real spider webs or were they from spider mites? mites would just be around the leaves?

moving trees from one place to another weakens them, and can kill them. while keeping it outside if temperatures permit etc is the best, it looks like you may have a tropic species of privet. I'd also be careful moving it around too much.