Hey guys! My mom got me a dwarf bonsai from Hawaii in September. The moss on my lava rock has turned brown and the roots have kind of thinned. The tree still looks healthy but I'm worried I'm not watering it correctly? I usually water it once a week by setting it in a bowl of water for 30 mins. I live in Michigan so I was thinking it could just be because it is cold and dry? Any advice is appreciated!

You cant really call this bonsai but oh well.... What substance is the soil? I can only really see the rock in this picture. If you've kept it alive since semptember indoors, I must assum it's a indoor plant and you've been watering it correctly. It would be helpful to know the species id, then people might be able to help you.

This is a schefflera, or umbrella plant. It looksa to me like a regular garden centra plant for the living room, pulled out of the pot an dplaced in a bonsai container. This has nothing to do with bonsai. Put it in a normal pot. Fill up with potting soil and enjoy as is.

Drowning it once a week for half an hour is not the way to water. There is no need to leave it in water for that long a few minutes is enough, bti you need to check when i is dry and water then I would have thought one a week is not enough.

If it's not technically a bonsai then where can I find one? And how is this one any different than a true bonsai? I was definitely told it was a bonsai just smaller.

Thanks for all the watering advice. This is my first time with a plant like this... so I've just followed what it said on the instructions it came with.

Here are bonsai: www.bonsaiempire.com/inspiration/gallery

Have a look. I assume you will understand why your plant is not a bonsai.

This is a dwarf sheffelera that had been trained for many years as bonsai, then planted inside the rock. They sell these at the airports and several stores across Hawaii. They all come from the same source, Fuku Bonsai located on the big island of Hawaii. I have visited here, and it is what started me down the road of bonsai. Here is a link to their site and more info about these trees and how to care for them. The owner David has done some amazing work with sheffelera bonsai and my local bonsai instructor here in PA knows him well and has fond respect for him and what he is doing. The class I took with there in Hawaii does recommend to water for 30 minutes so the water can fully penentrate all the pours of the rock and pull in fresh oxygen when removed. I'd follow what David suggests for this Bonsai.


www.fukubonsai.com

BadNewsBond wrote: This is a dwarf sheffelera that had been trained for many years as bonsai

This is a plant that was cut off and then a few leaves were allowed to grow.
This has had NO bonsai training AT ALL.

They do have good trees though:

www.fukubonsai.com/1a91a.html

Like I said, I've been there and seen there operation. Every tree there is grown from seedling and they have thousand of trees growing from seedlings that they train for several years. They have what seemed to be a couple dozen open greenhouses with just trees growing. The class there allows you pick the tree from a large group of pre-bonsai to either turn them into a normal bonsai or plant in a lava rock as you see in the original picture. Yes they do have several that were already placed in rocks, which come from them using that as their demo when doing classes.