What NOT to do thread.

[milehigh_7]

So... Let's kick this off with one of the stupidest things I have ever done or heard of. Many of you know I make my own rooting hormone. Well some of the chemicals are like 98% pure and just don't break down in water. You need to mix them with ethanol. So I went to the store to get some Everclear but they did not have it so I decided Vodka would be a good substitute at basically double the amount. Worked like a charm! Now the stupid part:

I put the rest of the Vodka in a water bottle. Yes yes I marked it. Well it was sitting on the shelf with some of my plants and I forgot what it was. Thinking it was just a half empty water bottle and hating to waste, I watered a few of my indoor plants with it. Let's just say straight Vodka is a pretty effective herbicide... Doh!

Post your stupidity if you dare!

 

[Anthony]

Repotted, and placed in full sun with breeze.
Dried to a crisp
Good Day
Anthony

 

[Cadillactaste]

My dumbest was mixing yard dose strength fertilizer for container use and watering a few of my trees. It's why I now have one bougainvillea instead of three. But was able to flush the cascade out enough to save the best one.

Recent stupidity though...I had stem die back on the exposed root rose I collected. So instead of pruning off with trimmers. I twisted and pulled the dead tip off...the branch ended up shriveling and dying from being manhandled. No stems now on the trunk. Will water and see if it buds or if it's a goner. What a stupid move...

 

[Carol 83]

Believe your son will water your trees while you are on vacation.........

 

[amatbrewer]

Once upon a time, I carefully and lovingly drove my entire collection 1100 miles from the nasty climate of San Diego (warm sun, cool moist breeze, steady 70's-80s temps...etc) to the lush wonderland of central Wa state (bitterly cold in the winter, stupid hot in the summer, expected to be 109F this week, no precipitation to speak of, and single digit humidity all year long) and after painstakingly building some temporary shelving at my brothers farm, I promptly got busy with my new life and forgot to water. My entire collection was gone.
It took me about 15+ years to get over it (thanks for reminding me of this by the way!), and am only now starting over. ["Pity Party, table for one!"]

 

[W3rk]

My two most stand out stupids so far, now that I'm about 1 year in.
- Over watering some of my trees - too much/too soon coming out of winter before they really needed that much. I definitely killed some/caused some root rot.
- Over fertilizing. I used too much/too strong of a fertilizer on a couple of my trees (the smallest trees in the smallest pots) killed one, half of another and saw some damage in a 3rd. They definitely needed a lot less.

 

[MHBonsai]

Bought a nice tree from a club member in the fall. A 30+ year old willow oak. I didn't check the soil or root system. It was root bound and in mostly broken down akadama. My other trees are in a very well draining mix, pumice/lava. I over-watered in the following spring and root rot killed it in 2 months time.

Also killed a pile of trees from just plain stupid impatience. Hard repots too early in the season (or even in fall) killed a couple really pre-bonsai maples that I wanted to get into good soil too fast.

I've also killed trees from late spring freeze + high wind after a repot. My best nursery find ever I killed this way. I still dream about that tree....

 

[TN_Jim]

Repot juniper meticulously

Place on edge of walking path to the porch, in partial shade

Leave porch light off -too many bugs

Walk by and boot into the yard
-classy

 

[Bananaman]

Forgetting to put the watering time clock back to "AUTO" after adjustments.

 

[atlarsenal]

I’m not sure it’s appropriate “like” any of the post on this thread.

 

[Clicio]

Tried to grow a juniper on my windowsill.

 

[coh]

Not really directly related to the trees themselves but...fighting with people on the internet and bonsai forums in particular. New motto...live and let live (and apply a healthy heaping tablespoon of ignore where appropriate). No good comes from it.

Bonsai related...similar to TN_Jim, spent a couple of hours repotting an arakawa maple that was incredibly rootbound. Got all the roots cleaned up and straightened out, planted into a nice new clay container, tied in, good soil, the works. Was lazy about cleaning up after myself and as I walked the newly potted tree out for watering, I tripped over some piece of crap I'd left on the ground and the pot went crashing to the ground...pot shards and soil everywhere. Fortunately it was a terra cotta nursery pot and not a good bonsai container. After much cursing the tree was repotted again. It survived without any damage (the pot took the fall, literally) and is in fact thriving. If anyone was recording the process it would have been spectacular.

The other biggie was buying a beautiful Chinese quince trunk one spring...it was the most I'd ever paid for a tree to that point and still an incredibly good deal for what it was. Nursed it through the summer but neglected to water it enough during winter. It never woke up the following spring. Lost another tree to the same issue that winter. Lesson learned...I still cringe thinking about it. That Chinese quince could have been a real beauty by now.

 

[BrianBay9]

I separated a ground layer after seeing the container chock full of roots. Turns out the roots were from weeds surrounding the layer. No roots from the tree.

 

[Lorax7]

Failed to notice that the top inch and a half of soil was still frozen solid until I was about half way through removing soil from the root ball of the juniper I was repotting this spring. It was a too wide for the pot I intended to put it in. I had a hell of a time picking away at the edge enough so it would fit in the pot. Finally got it in though. Tree died anyway.

 

[Arcto]

Living in Colorado’s Front Range in a rural area in prime habitat. I was at times a little complacent about checking for rattlers when outside. One day I was out messing with my trees on the benches. Kept a full water can under the bench for spot watering as needed. A few trees needed it. So I would water, put the can back, water, put the can back. About the 4th time I looked under the bench when I reached for the can and noticed a rattler lying quietly 6” from the can I kept grabbing. I found out then that I still had pretty good hops even past middle age! The snake was encouraged to find another place to nap. After that, I always...AWAYS looked under the benches first. Here is a different one that visited the bonsai area another day.

 

[_#1_]

First year into bonsai. Got a apple pre bonsai.

Went to Home Depot to get fertilizer. Found one that was for "trees".

Got home, opened the box and saw these bigass fert spikes! It was for REAL grown ass trees!

Decided I'm not going to waste these, I hammered them into granules and spread them around the surface.

The End

 

[TN_Jim]

Not really directly related to the trees themselves but...fighting with people on the internet and bonsai forums in particular. New motto...live and let live (and apply a healthy heaping tablespoon of ignore where appropriate). No good comes from it.

Bonsai related...similar to TN_Jim, spent a couple of hours repotting an arakawa maple that was incredibly rootbound. Got all the roots cleaned up and straightened out, planted into a nice new clay container, tied in, good soil, the works. Was lazy about cleaning up after myself and as I walked the newly potted tree out for watering, I tripped over some piece of crap I'd left on the ground and the pot went crashing to the ground...pot shards and soil everywhere. Fortunately it was a terra cotta nursery pot and not a good bonsai container. After much cursing the tree was repotted again. It survived without any damage (the pot took the fall, literally) and is in fact thriving. If anyone was recording the process it would have been spectacular.

The other biggie was buying a beautiful Chinese quince trunk one spring...it was the most I'd ever paid for a tree to that point and still an incredibly good deal for what it was. Nursed it through the summer but neglected to water it enough during winter. It never woke up the following spring. Lost another tree to the same issue that winter. Lesson learned...I still cringe thinking about it. That Chinese quince could have been a real beauty by now.

I have this vision of you in slow motion...
Ridiculousness at its best, that’s so great and absolutely awful.

My lived too but it’s pretty haggard

 

[Bananaman]

I separated a ground layer after seeing the container chock full of roots. Turns out the roots were from weeds surrounding the layer. No roots from the tree.

Thats the best one yet!!!

 

[0soyoung]

Teaspoon, tablespoon ...

 

[MrWunderful]

Like many n00bs, years ago when I first got “into” bonsai I went out and bought a bunch of trees and chopped the hell out of branches while pinching back any growth to force ramification without paying attention to the trees energy at the wrong time of year.