每日吃瓜

Hello all,

I was gifted several bonsai start kits with seeds last year. Starting in March, I was able to grow a black spruce, Colorado blue spruce, 2 jacarandas, and an eastern red bud. They were growing quite nicely until the late Fall when there was a lot of heat and wind in my area. I kept them outside through it and they all dried out a couple of times. The jacaranda in particular did not like drying out (though I've struggled with fungus gnats, so I was trying to take care of that issue too). Eventually, the temp dropped to 55F and I brought everything inside.

Since then, my jacarandas are constantly dropping leaves and branches, the redbud lost all its leaves, and my black spruce is turning brown. The blue spruce actually seems to be doing well.

I am careful to only water when the soil is dry deeper than an inch. They are all South-facing by a window. I haven't fertilized since bringing them indoors in October until today. I admit that I am a total novice and probably bit off more than I could chew, but I really want to help my trees. Any advice?

What you are doing is growing trees from seeds. There is decades of growth between seed and doing anything that has to do with bonsai. That is why we always start with mature trees when we do bonsai.

Good luck with your endavours.

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So on your specific trees:

Eastern redbud is a temperate decidious tree. They shed all their leafs every authum to prepare for cold dormancy. Skipping one dormancy normaly ends up with a very weak or dead tree. Skipping more than one dormancy leads to a certain death.

jakaranda is a subtropical decidious tree. They shed all their leafs in authum preparing for cool/dry dormancy. Oposite to temperate trees with cold dormancy, they need to be protected from frost. But skipping dormancy is still a death sentence.

The spruces are temperate conifers. They do not shed like decidious trees, but they still need winter dormancy or they will die.

It may not be too late to save your trees. But sinze their preparation for dormancy was interupted they may not be ready for frost temperatures. What you need to do is to prepare an area with cool temperature just above freezing. The decidious trees will not need light, but the conifers will.

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