每日吃瓜

Hello dear bonsai community!

Last summer I was gifted a carmona tree. During the whole season the tree was in a good shape, green and flowering.
With weather becoming colder it started to loose some which I guess is alright.
However, in January it kinda dropped all of them and since then it only grows buds which do not flower (and dry out from the tip of the bud) and the leaves also grow just barely to be able to notice them.
I did prune it a little around a month ago since I thought it was wintering and I noticed that some branches are completely dry while others are healthy.

Could you advice on what should I do to bring it to normal state? I might just be too impatient but I don't understand what's happening and google doesn't say much
Thanks!

Did you have a cold spell in January when it lost all its leafs?

It actually did. I was out for around a week and left it in the room without any heating. It might be that the temperature dropped to around 10C.

10c is not a problem for carmona. However, when temperature drop outside the humidity drop in our homes and carmona really dislikes dry air. So my question was about outdoor temperature not indoor temperature.

Anyway, this is just to establish the reason. The tree is most likelly dead anyway.

If you want to grow carmona again, the key to success is to keep humidity high at all times. 60% is proboably the lower limit, but over 70% is what you need for perfect health.

That's kinda strange. I live in the Netherlands and the humidity level inside is around 65% in winter and 75-80% in summer period.

I wonder if it's worth trying to revive it? like put it under a plastic bag.

I think you need to check your humidity meter. The European recomendation about indoor humidity is 30-60%. Anything above 60 will grow mold in the house.

Anyway, there are no harm in trying the plastic bag trick. There is a chanse it will sport back. Actually, I had a carmona that was totally bare most of summer and when I was about to throw it away in August, I realized there where small leafs. August was very wet, and that may explain it. But it never got strong enough to handle the dry winter. I have thrown it away and will never look at carmona again. Growing trees that are not well adapted to ones climate is just too much problems. One may be able to keep it alive, but it will never grow vigourous and become a great tree. If you fail with this one, my recomendation is to grow locally hardy trees outdoors. Just as the japanese do.