Cypress leaves turning BROWN

tycoon · White Belt Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Posts: 15

Hello all

I just recently purchased a cypress(bluemoss cypress) from a nursery and pruned and re-potted it from the one gallon pot,into a bonsai pot. The shape is an informal upright with three main foliage pads. The tree is approximately 13 and 3/4 inches tall and I've noticed that the leaves are starting to turn a little yellow or brown. The wired thing is that the needles are not turning hard but a staying soft like the green healthy foliage there is a lot of green stuff still left on the tree so I'm not too concerned but i just wanted to be sure.(just the ends of the bottom two foliage pads that had drastic pruning done to them).

P.s. I live in Ontario Canada, Thanks a lot anything is appreciated

Stymie · Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2005 6:08 pm Post subject: Re: Cypress leaves turning BROWN

Hi Tycoon and welcome.

The re-potting was done at a less than optimum time and some of the trouble may be related to that. It should recover in due course. Don't feed it until it seems to be quite recovered. Another cause of browning could be if you scissor pruned it. The way to prune them is to finger pinch and pull with a slight twist. This will not leave damaged scales behind which would probably turn brown but are not life threatening. I trust that it is being kept outside, otherwise there will be more problems.

tycoon · White Belt Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Posts: 15

Thank you very much for your reply and as you suspected the tree was scissor trimmed and not pinched out. I apologize for not leaving the necessary information such as where the tree is kept, pruning details as well as feeding schedules Embarassed

, I was in such a panic that I was going to loose my tree. I will try to improve my posting skills so that it makes the help easier. Thank you for replying to my questions and was wondering if you could answer another one. I've read about four books cover to cover about bonsai and could not find a specific method on root trimming for my particular species. I was just curious as to how to trim out the roots from a one gallon pot (regular nursery size containers) into a bonsai pot (just in general is fine no need for heavy detail) It seems that if you buy nursery stock for bonsai there is usually a long thick tap root that needs to be removed in order to fit it into the pot. Can you? should you remove it and if so how would i go about doing this
--All of my plants are outdoors and get daily attention, they are in half sun half shade and I live in Ontario Canada. (Not currently feeding my bonsai.)

Thanks again -------------- Tycoon Very Happy

Dick · Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 4:22 am Post subject: Re: Cypress leaves turning BROWN

This is not the normal time of the year to repot or root prune outdoor trees because winter is approaching and the trees will not have enough time to sufficiently recover before the winter season arrives.

Also, fertilizing is important for a healthy tree as it enters winter as well. I wouldn't stop fertilizing. If your trees in are in normal bonsai soil, it doesn't contain enough nutrient matter to sustain the tree's health for a very long time, and especially for the winter . The winter will be critical to set new buds for the sprng and without the nutrient value in the tree roots and soil, it will not be a happy springtime. So I would continue to fertilize with a half strength balanced fertilizer one every ten days until the end of September.

steve · Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 12:45 am Post subject: Re: Cypress leaves turning BROWN

Not to be arguementative but I would wait until the end of the month to start feeding so as to give the roots some time to heal.

Dick · Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 4:36 am Post subject: Re: Cypress leaves turning BROWN

tycoon,

I need to qualify my previous message. Sad

When you indicated that you had stopped feeding, I took it to mean ALL of your trees, not just the newly repotted blue moss cypress. As steve indicated, it is not advisable to feed a newly potted tree for a couple of weeks to give the roots time to recover.

However, that's not what I was referring to and so there could be some misunderstanding here. Sad

I was referring to all of your other trees in my comment about not feeding them. Unless they are all repotted recently, then I would continue to feed them as I indicated until late September to keep them in good health for the winter. But do hold off on the blue moss for a couple of weeks and then resume feeding it.

I hope this clears things up a bit. Smile

Where in Ontario are you? near Toronto? They have a very good bonsai club there and I would recommend that you look them up. The members can share their experiences with you when any questions may arise. Smile