Rescued Fukien tea advice

Hello I need some advice on this fukien tea very old tree someone i know had it just sitting in a broken pot so I rescued this one to help it out my question is the leaves on it are very dark green with the grey spots on them should i just let the leaves run there course and hope new foilage comes out,any suggestions would be helpfull also had to order a bot for it so friday will be potting in bonsai pot nice 14 inch unglazed clay oval which i think will compliment well[img][/img][img][/img][img][/img]

Dan,
Although I don't have much experience with fukien tea, I would not recommend doing any root work on it at the moment. It looks and sounds like it may not be in the healthiest condition so I would say and this goes for any tree allow it to recover its health and wait for the right season to repot. Bonsai4me.com has a good species guide which includes fukien tea. The pot it is in looks small and it is probably rootbound at this point. For now I would place it into a larger nursery pot without disturbing the roots and then fertilize and allow it free growth through the rest of the summer. Hold your new pot until next spring at the earliest. How long have you been interested in bonsai? The key is not rushing things, and definitely not with a tree that is in questionable health. It looks like it has potential to be a nice tree, but it needs some free growth and branch extension. Good luck.

Todd

Dan ,,your new found tree looks like it will be a nice bonsai..i would check the apex branches that have no leavesto see if they have green under the bark.. maybe some light pruning for light to get to the center. the leaves on my tree are dark green also because they are old leaves.. i would check also how wet it is at the bottomof the pot..that soil looks too fine and it may be too wet.the roots do not like to stay wet they will rot easy i too would slip pot this season with free draining soil..good luck keep posting john

I agree that the pot looks too small. I agree that moving it to a larger pot without disturbing the roots would be a good idea. It looks like a Chinese import.

I repotted my fukien tea it should be happy here had the root ball in tact and used a good free draining soil topped off with some rocks [img][/img]