Dawn Redwood wilting

[Adi]

I am sad! I have had this dawn redwood for about 2 months. It was doing fine and sprouting new leafs. However... it was root bound and i decided to repot it and also give it form by wiring.
New soil mix is ~60% akadama , ~25% pumice and ~15% bonsai soil. I did prune the roots too, about 30-40% of them.

Additional info:
- watered last friday (a little bit wilted, similar to after repot picture), left for the weekend and watered again on sunday (heavily wilted)
- i usualy water daily, with once a week Pokon fertilizer diluted as instructed on the bottle.
- repot was done in mid June, more than a week ago
- living in Bucharest, Romania
- plant is growing inside, by a window facing north with little sunlight.
- water passes quickly through the soil. In ~4 seconds it drips through the bottom
- when it started to wilt heavily i removed all wire and wiggled the tree a litle bit as i thought i squished the roots when i pressed the soil with a chopstick.

P.S: Excuse my grammar!

 

[penumbra]

I don't know your climate but your timing for all of this work is not good.
Also, it will die if kept inside, aside from the fact that your inside placement is terrible. It s not a houseplant.

 

[Adi]

I don't know your climate but your timing for all of this work is not good.
Also, it will die if kept inside, aside from the fact that your inside placement is terrible. It s not a houseplant.

It grows pretty fast inside too. I moved it outside since it started wilting. Repoting a metasequoia should be done in the early spring or when ?

 

[penumbra]

It grows pretty fast inside too. I moved it outside since it started wilting. Repoting a metasequoia should be done in the early spring or when ?

You are missing the point. It should never have been inside to begin with. Now you have unnatural soft growth that was prompted by growing inside and in poor light. It grows inside fast because it is looking for better light. Get it outside right away if you want it to live. Now that it has this unnatural soft low light growth, you will need to put it in the shade and move it to full sun over a week or two.

 

[Adi]

You are missing the point. It should never have been inside to begin with. Now you have unnatural soft growth that was prompted by growing inside and in poor light. It grows inside fast because it is looking for better light. Get it outside right away if you want it to live. Now that it has this unnatural soft low light growth, you will need to put it in the shade and move it to full sun over a week or two.

Ok, thanks for the advice!

 

[Srt8madness]

You basically did what pretty much all newbies do. You got too excited. Which is ok but hopefully the tree wasn't expensive.

Repotting stresses a tree
Root pruning stresses a tree
Wiggling the trunk breaks roots
Growing inside stresses a tree
Wiring stresses a tree.

3 of those are bonsai techniques and can be done safely, usually 1 or 2 per year, and a certain times of the year. Dawn Redwood are very strong which is really the only way this one could survive, I'm not sure it will though.

Unrelated note, my parents visited Romania a couple times years back and absolutely loved it.

 

[sorce]

Welcome to Crazy!

Sorce

 

[Adi]

You basically did what pretty much all newbies do. You got too excited. Which is ok but hopefully the tree wasn't expensive.

Repotting stresses a tree
Root pruning stresses a tree
Wiggling the trunk breaks roots
Growing inside stresses a tree
Wiring stresses a tree.

3 of those are bonsai techniques and can be done safely, usually 1 or 2 per year, and a certain times of the year. Dawn Redwood are very strong which is really the only way this one could survive, I'm not sure it will though.

Unrelated note, my parents visited Romania a couple times years back and absolutely loved it.

I feel like these bonsai trees are teaching me patience . I held on as long as i could with the repoting but that root bound stuff was always in the back of my head and i gave in to my urge. Yeah, i was afraid it would not survive but one thing lead to another, i got too excited, and did all these techniques at once. Reading that metasequoias are resilient trees also didn't help.
The tree wasn't that expensive. It was 150 RON which is about 30 euros. But the price doesn't matter. I've put some love into it and now i feel sadder than i thought i would be. Hah!

At least i learned something from this. I will be more kind to this and my future bonsai!

I am happy your parents enjoyed my country! It is very tourist friendly!