Good afternoon all and hope you're well!

I'm a new bonsai keeper and have been looking after my Sageretia since a little before Christmas, all seems to be going well however I have noticed some white marks on the leaves as well as a very few leaves tips' turning brown. Looking into it i'm pretty certain i've over-watered.

However upon a few hours research all I can find is folks diagnosing white mould as almost a fluffy sort of material, this is not fluffy but flaky in comparison. I cannot see any white markings on the bark or the trunk so thankfully it hasn't spread there as far as I can tell.

Any advice would be much appreciated, thank you.

Looks like your water is very hard and has calcium carbonate in it. It drying and leaving a residue on your leafs when you wet them.

Thank you Nick for the quick and helpful response.

I'll look into a way around this if possible so thank you!

If your water is too hard, what do you use to prevent white damage?

Pat, if your juniper isn’t outside all the time and only in to take a picture it is dying.

Hi Pat,

From what I understand and i'm no expert. But it's wise to collect rainwater and use that, which makes sense I suppose.


Although I must be honest, I've been lazy and haven't got around to that yet, from what I've researched, hard water can result in more serious damage if used exclusively over a long time, however infrequent watering with hard water will not be the end of the world.

Again though, no expert here and I can't speak for junipers (which by the way, I love the look of yours!)

You can let some tap water sit for a day or two before using.

Albas wrote: You can let some tap water sit for a day or two before using.

I am sorry, but I need to disagree neigther calcium nor carbonate will leave the water thrue evaporation.

Rain water or pure reverse osmosis water is the only practical ways around hard tap water. It is possible to use acid on tap water as well but it is risky, messy, takes a lot of knowledge and only deals with the carbonate Ions, not calcium.

No problem about disagreeing Tropfrog! We are always learning, and I'm always willing to...

All I know is chlorine evaporates on room temp ( sciencing.com/remove-chlorine-from-water-4516999.html ), otherwise algae wouldn't grow on tap water after a few days, but yes, I don't know about harder tap water...