posted April 22, 2006 10:59 AM         

Well I looked up info on it and found out that its the hardest Bonsai to grow!!! That it will die on you over night, mostly because of the growing ZONE, I think yours is Zone 9, but I am in 8 or 6.

I joined a Bonsai Forum the other day and someone responded to my inquiry, saying they had killed three of them over the years, but learned something each time. Well I don't plan doing that, I want mine to prosper.

I am wondering if any of your guys down there, no of this bonsai tree and any info about it. I think because its so hard to nurture here, no one has written about it,but maybe there, you can find info on line for me.

I would appreciate anything. Thank you.

posted April 22, 2006 07:13 PM         

There are a lot of Bonsai plants here in the Bay Area. But I don't know how people cultivate them. Sorry!

Do you have a purple plate? May be you could use it with your plant somehow

posted April 22, 2006 11:57 PM         

hnatiuk1@cyberone.com.au.

Good Luck

posted April 27, 2006 07:29 PM         

Hello Kelly

Thanks for your email query about tea trees (Leptospermum) being grown as bonsai.

Firstly, yes, they can be grown as bonsai, but…

There are many different species of Leptospermum. Some of them are easier to grow as bonsai than others. One of the most commonly available in plant nurseries has attractive pink to red flowers, and sometimes has reddish-green leaves. This is one of the more difficult ones to grow as bonsai. Some people have succeeded, while others have only had failures. Letting the soil dry out, or stay too wet, seems to be the reasons for the failures.

All of the tea trees have very fine surface roots, which is generally a good thing in bonsai. They are a bit like azaleas from this point of view. However, they do not respond well to having their roots trimmed severely. It seems better to use the ‘pie-cutting’ method, that is, remove one or two narrow slices – say removing 1/8 of the soil volume in total (on opposite sides of the plant) and back fill with new soil. Avoid cutting large roots when you do this. If you do this every one or two years, you will probably have a good chance of successfully regenerating a good growth of new roots, while not overly stressing the plant. The frequency depends on how vigorously the plant regenerates new roots, which you can determine by lifting it out of the pot once a year and seeing if it is pot bound or not. If not, then just replace in the pot.

The tea trees generally respond fairly well to pruning, but again it depends on the species. Some will tolerate being pruned back to old wood and shoot from the old wood, but others will not back shoot on old wood at all. You will need to do some testing with yours to see how it responds. If it shoots back well, then you are working with a plant that has good bonsai potential, if not, then you should either give it up or you will need to be very careful and vigilant to control its increase in size. The latter is possible, but is really best left to skilled bonsaiists, or at least the very dedicated and reasonably knowledgeable. I don’t know where you come on the scale of bonsai skills.

Tea trees vary greatly in their ability to withstand frost. Some are completely frost sensitive and will not take even a mild frost (say -1C), while others can tolerate, at least as mature plants, some degree of freezing (say -5 C). You will appreciate that there are no parts of continental Australia that experience the kinds of winters that are common in Utah. So frost tolerance is a bit of a relative concept.

As for growing them indoors, well yes and no. I would suggest that you provide a well lit, airy, frost free place for your tea trees if you want them to grow well. This could be indoors, as long as you ensure good lighting and good air movement. What is meant by good lighting for plants is something you might need to do some research on. There are a number of books about indoor bonsai available. You can probably also find some good information on the web too. I know that I have stumbled across some from time to time. Some people have gone to great lengths, while others have achieved success with a lot less expense. The tea trees generally don’t need humid air, such as some wet-tropics plants need, thus providing a dripping wet atmosphere (with mouldy walls a consequence!) would not be needed or even good for the tea trees, but bright light is pretty important to their welfare.

Good luck. You can be successful, but you might also need to experiment a bit too.

Cheers