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Hello guys,

I would like to ask you for your help as I am unable to figure out what is wrong with my little tree. I have some guesses, but I'd rather ask someone more experienced than just screw it straight ahead.

So to start from the begining, I got fukien tea for christmas. It spent two or three weeks at my friend who bought it, and at that time it shed almost all leaves. This was probably caused by temperature changes, season, improper care and who knows what else. Below is photo of it when it first came. It was rather simple but lots of leaves.



Afterwards there were couple winter months and really small improvements. Overally it was rather stagnant, but it did not worsen any more. Leaves stopped falling, there were new ones and at some point even small white flowers. I placed it on window that is heading directly on east, so there is sun in the morning and afterwards little less. I do not have any other windows, so this is best I can do. I water it at least twice a week when it starts to look thirsty. I got the feeling that substrate drys only on top, and below it stays wet. I tried to water it a little more often but substrate started to look white and "moldy". As for fertilizer, I use liquid one every two weeks.

In recent days/weeks it has worsened again and I am a bit worried that it might die altogether. There started to appear yellow leaves which fall, roots seem to grow upwards out from the pot and overally it looks worse.

Bellow I'm sending current photos, so please let me know if you have any ideas on how to improve it (my guess would be to repot it into different substrate, but it is just a wild guess).

Thanks in advance

Others are more wise than me, but looking at the pictures i would say repotting it maybe be a good idea. If you do, i would go with the boons mix for the soil. I also have a question.. what do you do for humidity?. If i'm right, this is a tropical evergreen and needs to have good humidity and warmer temperature than other bonsai trees. Usually, yellowing of leaves means over watering, a easy way to check that is to take a chopstick and stink it in for a minute, if it's damp or is wet.. don't water. It's easy to think you do when it looks dry on top. But for now i say repot it with a non-organic soil for bonsai trees and make sure the humidity is at least 50% and is in a warm place. An idea for you is to make a like a humidity tent for it. That is what i did with mine as it was doing what you are saying. After i did that, it's 100% better and growing good now.For the heat,i use a heat mat for starting seeds and keeps the inside of the tent around 76-83f. It just might work for yours too.

As for humidity I only spray it with water. Guess this might be also problem. My flat is quite warm nowadays, but funny thing is that it was growing almost fine during winter when it was quite cold inside. At that time I was little worried that it will behave much worse as I had around 17 celsius in room, but there were new leaves and they grew nicely.
I will try to repot it this week and maybe fiddle with humidity tent. Hopefully it will catch on.

If you have any other ideas or suggestions, I would appreciate them

Other than re-potting it and setting up some kind of humidity box with a good light source would be a real good start. Looking at you're pictures, it seems to me that it maybe root bound, perhaps that is why the roots are going up as there is no more room for them. A bigger pot with inorganic soil would help it a lot right now. You can find inorganic bonsai soil on Amazon or E-bay, it's easy to find. The only down side i can see with inorganic soil is that you have to watch the watering with it as it will dry-up a lot faster.... but the roots will get more air and root rot is almost nonexistent. Again, the chop-stick method is good for this:), you don't want to guess on water.... especially this tree.

This tree needs a good light source. I use a LED grow light panel on top of the humidity tent if i feel it's not getting enough light.. Seems to work out good and adds a little more heat inside the tent.

Don't be surprised that after re-potting and setting everything up that you will loose some leaves and it may look like it's getting worse. This is one temperamental tree. Anything can set it off.. :evil:. So you can imagine what re-potting is going to do.. it's not going to like it.So,be aware of that. But in time it should start to come back. Any more questions just ask.

Ok, I will look for new substrate and ways how to humidify it. Hopefully it will survive next weeks. It starts to look worse every day

I knew that it is hard to maintain, that was the reason i did not buy it myself but got it as a present in good faith.