名媛直播

My Chinese Elm bonsai is not doing well at the moment. It normally lives beside my work desk near a well lit window with a bit of shade cover from the trees outside, but I had 3 weeks off over Christmas so I brought my bonsai home. I put it outside under a covered balcony in a spot where it would only get indirect sunlight. I watered it before I went away for a few days, but unfortunately we had some extremely high temperatures and all the leaves shrivelled up and died! I watered it diligently when I returned home but there was no improvement.

I'm back at work now so I can give my bonsai the care and attention it's used to receiving. Action I've taken so far is to transfer the bonsai into a pot with two drainage holes instead of one. The pot it was in had only one drainage hole and I feel like it was holding water for too long. The roots were dark but not slimy or rotted so I think I made the right decision to improve drainage. I didn't prune the roots at all, I just gently teased them out and got rid of all the old soil. I re-potted the bonsai using the exact same potting mix - trying not to stress the tree out even further by changing too many things at once - but I added a few small pieces of charcoal around the root base. I'm hoping this will keep the roots a little cooler and assist with drainage so the roots don't actually start to rot. I also removed all the leaves as they were crispy brown and way beyond saving - they fell off as I brushed my finger past them. The branches are still flexible and not completely dried out so there's a glimmer of hope. I didn't do any pruning or fertilising as I understand the tree is in preservation mode and now is not the time to encourage new growth.

Is there anything else I can do to help my baby recover? Do you think adding charcoal pieces to the soil was the right decision? I know pumice is supposed to be better but I had the charcoal handy. Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated.

Also to add, I'm located in Sydney Australia so it's the peak of summer at the moment. Just in case anyone was wondering why I'm dealing with heat damage

Photo of my Chinese Elm in happier times vs today

nope. now you play the waiting game..

Emjoy summer. We just had a month of continuous rain (100% of the monthly precipitation has already fallen). Temps to drop by the weekend to frost. Jealous of everyone in summer right now.

Thanks for the confirmation. The waiting game sucks, but I guess bonsai in general is one big waiting game!

If it does miraculously pull through and start putting out new leaves / shoots, how long should I wait before giving it fertiliser (I use worm tea straight from the worm farm we have at work) or pruning it?

I would wait untill you see real growth. So say,5cm growth on the branches.