Care sheets for baobab bonsai say to water once a month. That just doesn't seem right.
I can understand watering much less often than other trees. I pot the baobab with less organics to keep it drier, but letting it dry out completely for long periods just doesn't feel right. Usually I water it every other time I water the others, but later in July/August we will have weeks of highs and lows of 100F/35C and 85F/30C with full sun 12 hours. How can it survive without water?
It's outside now getting lots of sun, but it rains every week, usually two or three times. How would I keep rain off?
Watering very rarely, how do you fertilize?
The plan for the tree is to air layer. The sphagnum moss has to be kept wet, doesn't it?
They do not survive without water, just like nothing else on this planet. It is a succulent kind of tree that store tremendous amounts of water in the trunk. It can use that water during long time of draught. It is like a sponge. Once they get that rare rain in its natural distribution It absorbs everything very fast. Roots grow only when totally dry. When moist for long time the roots die back.
The baobab tree grows in areas that gets less than 500mm rain yearly. Most of it in rare heavy rain in summer. I would leave it dry in winter and water abundantly once a forthnight in summer. Same as I do with my jades and desert rose that comes from the same area. That is grown in greenhouse. The ones I take outdoors in summer are never watered. We get enough rain to keep them happy.
Both replies are good advice, but I am curious how the tree uses fertilizer.
I always assumed that tree roots picked up stray molecules of nitrogen, potassium, or phosphorus dissolved in water, as well as traceelements. If no water, no solution.
But if you don't water, there isn't any water to carry the fertilizer.
A related issue is that with biogold and other pellet fertilizer water breaks the fertilizer out, but if you don't water, again there isn't any water to carry the fertilizer.
The tree has never really thrived, and I suspect over watering is the issue. I am forcing myself to water less. It is hard.
The uptake and storage of nutrition is totally inline with uptake and storage of water. When the tree is not watered and totaly dry it uses stored reserves of both.
Yes, reading from your watering scedule and the trees biology and natural distribution it seems like you are overwatering.
I have one jade tree in bonsai pot. It is kept cold and bone dry in winter, in spring before we hit 10c at night it is in the greenhouse and gets water every forthnight. In summer outdoors it gets enough water from rain and authum is similar as spring. In total that makes me activly watering the tree 4-8 times per year. I also grow aloe dichotoma from the same area. It is in the greenhouse all summer and gets water every forthnight except for the peak of summer it gets once a week.
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