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Hello,

I'm new to the bonsai world and, quite frankly, I'm very lost. My girlfriend and I bought a 6 year old Fukien Tea tree about a month ago and it is dying. I've attached pictures, but it was once a healthy-looking plant with many large leaves and vivid green smaller leaves. It has deteriorated to what you now see. Everywhere I go for advice on how to raise this tree gives different information, but here's the current conditions:
Soak for about 10 minutes once a week, up to the trunk
No grow light or direct sunlight, only a few hours of indoor lighting
I recently put fertilizer in the pot, Osmocote Plus
The pot is what the tree was originally in, I bought the humidity tray after
The tree seems to have developed a white fungus infection, I've applied liquid copper fungicide
Last week, I was soaking the tree and a small, reddish-pink worm emerged from the soil, which I immediately removed
Can somebody please help me nurse this tree back to life? It's breaking my heart to see it rapidly dying in my care. Any help would be so greatly appreciated

Welcome to the empire.

For starters.. This is a VERY dificult species to keep. They are from humid tropics and need moist warm air. In a house, this can pretty much never be realized. It beats most people why this is such a commonly sold species, as they die as quickly as you can replace them.

Then a few pointers..

- Soaking a rootball is ONLY a good idea if he soil is too dry to take up water. This shold never happen, so it is pretty much never a good idea to water by submersion. Rather, use a watering can.
- Fertilizing a tree that is struggling is a bad idea. Against the common idea, fertilizer is not plant food. It provides some things that the plant needs to grow. The plant however keeps a stock of thse elements, so normally, a struggling plant is not lacking fertilizer. Fertilizer = salty => It puts a strain on the roots. Often, struggling plants already have root problems..

Be carefull watering. Give it a warm moist location with plenty of sunlight.

Thank you so much. 2 follow-up questions:
Do you recommend misting the tree during the winter to keep it moist?
How often should I water using the watering can? I read online that it should only be watered if the soil is dry

Water when almost dry, I would not mist at all. This species needs high light levels, preferably in a south facing window.

Thanks so much. I will follow all this advice and hope that the tree begins to recover

Hi. I was searching something else and came across this post, but I can’t tell when it was posted.

Anyway, I thought I would put in my two cents for anyone who finds this. I have a Fukien tea tree, and I find it to be actually pretty hardy. But I thought from your description that you might have mealy bugs. My Fukien tea got these, and they look like white fuzz when adults and like tiny worms when young. This might be why the tree is dying(or died if this is too late). My research online suggested killing individual adults with a Q-tip and rubbing alcohol and then spraying the tree with a low mixture soapy water followed by a rinse. Sounds extreme, but my tree has survived a couple rounds of it just fine. I mean, it’s not in full thriving condition, but it’s never been on death’s doorstep either (also one of my cats likes to bite its leaves).

The picture here is after I was away for a few weeks and had to recover from a new infestation of mealy bugs.

To be honest.. I do not see any signs of mealy bugs on this plant?

Oh, I’m not sure if you mean mine or the original post (I was just going from the original post description). The picture of mine is from today. I removed the bugs last night.

There were white dots on some of the leaves that have since fallen off. There's some white residue on the soil that I thought was a fungus or mildew, I've been spraying with copper fungicide and it seems to work