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Hi,
I'm sure this is an incredibly common question, but I am very worried about my bonsai. It is a fig bonsai, and I've had it for 4 months without trouble, but recently it has been doing very very poorly. Its leaves began yellowing, then browning and dropping a few weeks ago, but initially there was about half the tree that looked fine. However this area slowly shrunk and now there are no remaining green leaves. I have been keeping in it a sunny place, worried it hadn't been getting enough light. I may have overwatered it around a week or two ago because my initial response to leaves yellowing/browning was that it might not have had enough water. The soil is now damp, not wet, in both the top and bottom of the soil.

As far as I can tell there are no pests, but all of its leaves have browned or fallen, and it seems very brittle.(Picture 1) The tips of the stems used to be green, but are now black, darker than the rest of the bark.(Picture 2) There is a discolored spot on the trunk that may or may not be related.(Picture 3) Picture 4 is what it looked like when it was healthy.
I'm worried it will die if I don't change something I'm doing. Any help would be very appreciated.

You can stop worrying. It is dead.

Do you know what I did wrong so that I could not kill any future trees? And at what point it started dying?

Rain wrote: Do you know what I did wrong so that I could not kill any future trees? And at what point it started dying?

If you can post a series of photos from the moment you purchased it until the moment it died, including your daily log of care you gave it, yeah, then maybe.

Unfortunately I don't have a set of photos but I can describe generally how I treated it and problems I encountered and when.

I bought the tree in late September. I kept it on a desk that did not get direct sunlight but put it in my south-facing window for several hours a day. I watered it thoroughly (until water came out the bottom) around once a week, but not on a schedule. By december it seemed slightly less vibrant than it had in september, but still had many green leaves. I brought it home(2 hour car trip) for christmas break from december 24-jan 24, where it stayed for about a month. In this time it was less healthy looking, had a few yellow leaves, but mostly all green leaves. During this time it didn't get as much sunlight, but I still watered it thoroughly around once a week.

Generally both rooms are fairly warm (65-70) and I try to keep them somewhat humid, and spray the leaves with a spray bottle if the room seems dry.

It started having problems after I brought it back(again about 3 hours in a car in winter.) I have a low quality picture of just the leaves from directly before I brought it back. In the first week after I brought it back I forgot to put it in direct light, and left it in indirect light. Some leaves began to yellow. I thought I may have forgot to water it so I watered it more than usual, and kept it in sunlight several hours a day. However it got worse, and by the next week, about half the tree looked like the first picture in my first post, but the other half had green leaves. Worried I'd overwatered it, I didn't water as much the next week, and the soil was still damp. It continued to worsen over this week, and today is the first day it has had 0 green leaves. This was all very sudden.

I believe being transported had a negative effect on it, but I don't know why it would continue worsening for 3 weeks if I didn't change my care.

Sidenote: I figured if it was probably dead it couldn't hurt to check the roots, because if they were black or dry it would probably confirm death. However, they seem pale brown and springy, if a bit sparse. Is there a chance it could come back?

Thank you so much for your response, it's totally cool if there's not enough info here btw. I wish I'd taken more pictures!




(a close up of the first picture)

Rain wrote: I kept it on a desk that did not get direct sunlight
put it in my south-facing window for several hours a day.
I brought it home(2 hour car trip)
I brought it back(again about 3 hours in a car in winter
I forgot to put it in direct light, and left it in indirect light
kept it in sunlight several hours a day

That may have been one of the causes: continuously moving the plant to a different environment. Many plants don't like that.

Generally both rooms are fairly warm (65-70)

This may have been another cause. That's too hot, even for humans.

Also, watering once a week doesn't seem right.

Your tree should have got too much shock. Moving it around in winter is not ok for tropical tree. If it was too warm in the room, watering once a week sounds logical. 70F which is 21C is absolutely normal room temp (its fun when you guys put the temps in fahrenheit). So, with this schedule you may have overwatered if soil is bad made. Having the gravel over the soil will not let you know when its dry and ready for watering. Have you got heaters close to tree? What happened after you checked the roots?

Yeah, moving it definitely seems to be a huge issue. Unfortunately I had to; otherwise it would have gone unwatered in the dark for a month. The heaters are not particularly close to the tree, and I do actively try to keep the room somewhat humid, as I personally am sensitive to overly dry environments. The soil seems to be typical potting soil; I didn't know enough when I got it to give it better soil.

Since I took it out of the pot to check the roots, I figured I could mess with it to try to make the conditions better. I moved all of the gravel to the bottom and added some additional gravel to promote drainage, covered drainage holes with mesh to prevent dirt loss, put the tree back, and added a bit of loose soil to fill in the gaps. The people who responded seem very knowledgeable and are almost certainly right that it is dead, but I have read a story or two about a ficus that dropped its leaves from environmental change coming back, so I figured it can't hurt to leave it there on the slim chance it might recover. Thanks for your response!

Hope dies last. Good luck anyway, miracles happen sometimes but dont expect too much. At least you got your lesson and learning from errors is fundamental. No matter what, if you still have passion for trees in pot go and get another one and keep on training and learning. Note that this ficus is not bonsai and hardly could ever be. Still they are good for starters and learning how to keep a tree alive.

Yeah lmao I'm almost certainly being foolish here prolly nothing will happen.
I've read a lot of people saying that most "bonsai" actually aren't, not surprised that mine wasn't. I was wondering what makes a potted tree an actual bonsai, and how I could get one/get a tree that could become one, and if it's even possible to have a healthy bonsai indoors for most of the year. (I am a college student and cannot leave it outside) If there aren't bonsai that can stay indoors 9 months of the year, I'll probably stick to less cool house plants... maybe someday I'll be able to have a real one.