Overwatering

My son has a thing about Bonsai...he really likes them but unfortunately they don't like him...they have a tendency to end up as leafless dried up twigs.

We have always maintained that he just didn't have the patience and care to look after them. So when we recently visited the Gardening Scotland Show we bought a couple of new Bonsai...one replacement for him and one for us...with the intention of showing him how it's done. So I carefully read the instructions and it said that every week you should immerse the pot into water for a few minutes to make sure the soil was thoroughly wet through. So I did so with both Bonsai...a day of so later the leaves turned yellow and a lot of them dropped off! Consulting the troubleshooting section of the instruction leaflet I learned that yellow and falling leaves was a symptom of overwatering...

In an attempt to ensure some more gentle watering practice I decided to put the Bonsai out in the garden (as the instruction leaflet said you could) and let the light, summer rain moisten the soil gently......and then it p*ssed down all day and the damn things got drenched again!

'See', my son said, 'I told you they were damn difficult to keep alive!'


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