Baby Flame Tree bonsai keeps losing leaves and branches?

[eascusa]

Hello everyone!
I am rather new to Bonsai having a flame tree and two spruce pines. They came in a kit I got for Christmas. I have another post describing my issues I am having but this post is only about one thing and I think most of you who are experienced might be able to answer it. I am trying to find the right spot in my house for my flame tree. It has about a 12-inch trunk that I am pretty happy with until it stopped growing anyways and it grows branches quite often. However, it doesn't seem to want to keep more than only two branches at a time. It will grow a third but then the leaves turn yellow and fall off, followed by the branch turning yellow and then falling off. What the heck! It is 1 1/2 years old now. And the trunk hasn't grown any either for over 8 months. I have only given it fertilizer a few times and I know this isn't good but I don't know what kind to give it or how much. I don't want to kill it. Right now it's in a very sunny window. Not so much direct light but very sunny and bright. I moved it to a less bright window and it still lost its leaves and branches. I then tried yet another window but still the same thing. Maybe even worse so I just put it back to where I originally had it. Does anyone have any thoughts about what I could do to help it keep its branches? And what to give it for fertilizer, how much and when? I live in the Mojave desert and it is summertime right now. It is very hot outside so it can't go outside for sure. It gets to 106 outside. As it gets colder I might put it outside until the winter comes and the freezing temperatures hit. Another should I question. Thx Oh, I added a pic of it underneath the very sunny window I had it in. I am keeping it where it is right now in the photo though to see if it helps. So far it hasn't.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

When a tree adds as much as it drops, it has no reserves and no energy to build more. It's pure survival for the sake of survival. To add new foliage and basically stay alive, it sucks the older foliage dry and recycles all resources it can get out of it.

This means that the conditions aren't ideal and that there is a lack of nutrients and sunlight. If either is lacking, it'll keep doing this until at some point it runs out of resources.

A shade cloth isn't a luxury in the desert, if you want to keep trees in pots there.
There are other people from warmer regions that might have some tips for you.

As for dosing nutrients, if you're having trouble with ratios with solids, get some liquid fertilizer and use it according to the packaging.
View it the same way as making lemonade: for a jug you use 3-4 lemons, 1 orange and some sugar. For a bucket, you use 6-8 lemons and two oranges and more sugar. The taste however, is always the same, because you adjusted for the amount of water you're using. With liquid nutrients, it works the same way. The directions on the bottle tell you exactly how much you should use. Give that nutrient juice once every four waterings or so, and you'll probably be close to an ideal dosage.

Just a FYI: spruces are spruces and pines are pines. They're both conifers, but they're not each other.

 

[eascusa]

thx for that. Do you think it could be getting too much light in that window? I know it couldn't be light it wants because it is extremely bright in that little bathroom. I think it's nutrients even though I mixed up bonsai soil for it. I looked it up on the web everything bonsai's need and put it together. But I will be getting some bonsai liquid fertilizer. Hopefully, that will do the trick.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

I'm thinking that it might get too little light from that window. Glass windows filter roughly 40-60% of plant-usable light. To us windows are transparent, to plants they act as a shade cloth.

You don't need bonsai fertilizer per say, most nutrients will do as long as they're meant for plants. I'm actually a big fan of using generic brand house plant fertilizer, because it contains everything a plant needs to the T.
I'm convinced 'bonsai fertilizer' is like cannabis fertilizer: it's generic nutrients with a modified label that says Bonsai and a 400% increase in price because of that. In the case of cannabis fertilizer, it's even worse than most generic stuff, because it always lacks micronutrients or something else. And of course they offer that "something else" in another expensive specially labeled bottle.
Maybe I'm just a Dutch cheapskate, but last time when I did a content comparison of 16 nutrient brands, I found the generic house plant brand to be both the best and the cheapest.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Welcome to the Forum.

Delonix - Flame tree, needs sun to thrive. Indoors it needs the brightest window possible. I would move the tree back to the brightest window you have. I don't have experience growing outdoors in the Mojave, I know in Florida, they grow Delonix outdoors in full sun. I don't know how that translates to growing in the Mojave. I'll let others comment about when you can safely put this tree outside. But the point is, indoors, with a pane of glass between the tree and the sun is less than ideal light. So definitely keep your tree in the brightest window possible.

In nature, Delonix, do not keep a lot of branches. All Delonix as bonsai tend to be somewhat sparse, with fairly few branches. Actually for a tree as small as yours is, having only 2 branches is not unusual. All is forgiven when they get around to blooming.

Fertilizer, Wires_guy_Wires, was pretty much spot on. Trees can not read labels, it does not have to say "bonsai fertilizer", any houseplant fertilizer will do. Follow label directions. Fertilize at least once a month, once every 2 weeks is better, and every 4th time you water is a good frequency too. Don't over-do the concentration. I usually take the label directions and cut them in half. So if it says one teaspoon per gallon, I use one half teaspoon per gallon. When I mix up a batch, what I don't use on my bonsai, I put on my other houseplants and my tomatoes, they all eat the same nutrients.

 

[Paul F.]

I live in The Florida Keys and I grow a lot of these and I grow them in full sun. Let them dry out in between waterings.. When they get enough sun they just close up their leaves. I water then once a day (in the evening) I let them get dry all day long in Africa-hot sun . I think once they get too big for the pot they’re in, they get slightly angry.The second pic is a dwarf version.