Auk wrote:

leatherback wrote:

bob wrote:

I have experience with elms,

Really? And 9 months ago you did not even know how to keep them in winter . Interesting what you call experience.

He has read a book, LB!

LOL

Two winters actually, i went to australia and had to take mr b with me. And i meant that i had experience pruning it.

leatherback wrote:

Unless you know what you are doing, just don't defoliate. It can kill a tree if done at the wrong time.
It is only done with very far-developed trees, OR with trees that are very healthy and strong, in assistence of refining branching.

Right... Do not defoliate! This is a lesson I've learnt the hard way. Don't wanna see another tree in danger because of "mis-defoliation". Your tree doesn't look strong/healthy enough nor well stablished.

You have all been helpful.

I've learned you are helpful and the group has an interesting dynamic.

Thank you.

I saw a book here, BONSAI: A BEGINNERS GUIDE. Because I am a compulsive reader and it was here on the forum, well, I bought it.

I think I will take my time and get to know this haphazard Elm, before I do more than trim the obvious runaway sprouts.

With the tea tree I will snip the tiny strays.

I got my trees from two different places on Amazon and the packaging was night and day.

I may go back to the Tea tree folks and order another Elm through there to see if I can get one in better shape for my experience level.

I am known to my family as the Bonsai Tree Killer.

I bought a few of the evergreen juniper trees. One at a time. I refused to admit they were dead. I kept thinking, maybe they will come back. Then I began to suspect I bought them already dead.

In my reluctance to totally give up, I began keeping the poor little bodies out on a shelf in the breezeway. To this day, if I go have a good rummage, I am sure I'll find a small pot with a brown stick like creature lurking in the shadows.

The first Tea tree got overwhelmed with something that caused white powder, everywhere. The leaves browned, blackened and fell. I treated it with a pest killer and it began growing new leaves.

Then the terrible white dust, returned.

I sent it to re-hab with my daughter.

I am trying to break my serial killer status by including a good weekly shower for my trees in an effort to spray away any pests before they take hold.

I am using a full spectrum florescent light and a small fan to move some air around. Not aimed directly at them, this is dry Montana, after all.

Anyway, now you know more about me.

I hope you won't hold my serial killer status against me. I won't go near your trees... really..

Thanks Everyone!
Well Met..

Hi Sally,

Consider getting plants that you can keep outdoors. It is much easier to keep local trees alive outside than some foreign species indoors.

The whiter powder was meldew. It is a fungal infection and occurs when a plant has too moist an environment.

Washing you rtree every week is absolutely not needed (When my ficus are inside for winter, they do not get wet leaves unrtill they get the spring rains)

Also you can propogate tree from your area and grow them outside.