A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2004 Miniature Arboricola

Hi,
I recently, as in today, bought a 6-inch Arboricola. I have been doing research and it turns out that it is a tropical plant. It was outside in about seven degree weather today with some wind. I have no idea how low it would take to damage it but I've learned it is extreamly sensitive to cold. I wouldn't it consider it cold but I was wondering if it possibly had dome any damage. In addition I have found little about caring for the pant other than to keep it moist and avoid direct sunlight. Any tips would be helpful. It's future is a bonsai so if anyone has any special tips or guildlines for this type of plant please feel free to post. Thanks.

*done any damage.

Please excuse my terrible spelling.

Aboricola is the umbrella plant right?
It will probably loose some leaves for shure depending how long it was in the cold. I don't know to much about it but if it dosen't die I can help with training it into a bonzai! I'm relitivly new to bonzai but I have a few books, lots of info and good web sites I can share with you! You should know the efects of the cold within the next few days. I don't think you should use tap water(or let it sit for 24h at least) and don't fertilize untill you know it's OK. I think it's a fast growing plant so you shoud see some sign of new growth within the next month.
Welcome to the gardener's forum. Some one who knows more will come soon but keep us updated and I'll get some of that bonzai info to you.
Good luck!

Yes it is. Anyway I was hoping it wouldn't lose any leaves, because it was exposed for only a very short time, anyway I'll keep you posted on what happens to it. I've heard it's a very fast grower too. Apparently you can prune like crazy and it won't matter. In that case I'm hoping the leaves that it loses will grow back and it will be fine. I'd love for you to help me train it into a bonsai. It's supposed to be very easy to do so hopefully i don't kill it like I didd my last few attempts.

No leaves have dropped yet and all appears well. I havn't watered yet because it still seems quite damp. However on the leaves I've spotted what seems to be dust but it looks like the outlines of water droplets and is harder to wipe off than dust. It's only on the older leaves. Are these stains from having hard water? Should I leave them alone or wipe it off? Sould I water only around the base and avoid getting the leaves wet?

The spots that you are seeing on the leaves I belive to a from the plant getting a pesticide treatment before it left the nursery. ( Which is a good things as you don't want to start out with pests.) Though it can be somewhat of a pain to clean off! I have been using unsented baby wiped on mine with no ill effect! I figure that if they are gentle enough for my baby's tush they they are safe for my plants! Though I wouldn't try it on furry plants! I get my Arboricola's leaves wet on occasion and not harm has come to it because of it, though don't get the leaves wet and put it in the diffect sun as the water drops will act as magnifine (sp) glass and burn the leaves.
Hope this is of some help!

Your Schefflera arboricola prefers lots of very bright indirect light. It can handle a few hours of ealy or late day direct sun, as well. It will grow faster and stronger in more light.

Water it thoroughly as soon as the surface of the soil feels dry. Don't repot it until it starts drying out every day or two. Go easy on fertilizer. Water will not hurt the leaves, although hard water may leave water spots.

In bonzai it's somewhat important not to use tap water because in it's training it is usually under stress already and the chemicals can't help plus they cause build ups of calcium and things like that :p . It's better for it to just get fertilized when needed and use distilled water. also in bonzai it's important for it be fertillized, because of the very small pot the tree absorbs the nutrients it needs very quickly.
Just out of curiosity I have a few questions. Did you buy it as a bonzai or is it just like a baby plant? Are you only wanting indoor trees? What kind of trees did you try befor? Where about in Canada, maby your close to me? I'm in Gatineu in the outaway region.

Heres a pic of a bonzai arboricola
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I bought it just as a baby but the shaping is nice, just a little rough around the edges, needs smoothing out. I tried different types of pines before, one got sick and the others I planted from seed and they wern't to happy about the changing conditions. I had to keep them away from my cats! I live in alberta. I'll try wiping off the spots, thanks for the tip! Also I'd better water it and move it out of the shade. My window doesn't get alot of direct light,it should be ok there, that's where I'll move it. Thanks for the advice everybody!

The pic didn't work.

Also about watering, when I bought it it had a bunch of moss, for decoritave purposes I assume, growing around the bottom. I'm not sure what type it is but it is not the type that looks like what you get in the garden, on rocks inbetween cracks, this was definantly planted. Does it need more water with this extra plant? Also abou the bonsai, I'll remeber the thing about tap water, mine is VERY hard so I'll use the same water I do for my freashwater fish and Lucky Bamboo, the chemicals hurt them too. Currantly my plant is not under any trianing stress, I'm waiting to make sure the cold did not harm it before I train it.

Hmm... I've only managed to get to pics t work since I've been here and they were at the same time but they were worth it!
Sorry about that. I don't realy understand how the moss works. The moss under my tree seems to have died but the only cause I can think of was maby it somehow drowned from me misting the tree so often . If it worries you at all I'd just put on top of some dirt in a small empty pot and let it grow then just put it on the trees base when you want to present it to people or something. It will be less confusing in the long run to just make shure the plant is in it's best condition. To start your training I would put it in a 7" wide pot that is about 4" deep with very good drainage to help it get a good wide root system for it's trunk to thicken up and just let the shoots grow out for a while.
I also learned the hard way that seeds are hard to grow trees with if your not careful. Luckilly I still have one out of like 12 or something. It's been decided that it will be my families bonzai. As my mom got the seeds for my dad left them in the fridge untill I took them out and started growing them. Pines are also a very hard tree to grow for a beginer(people like us) they tack a lot of care and understanding. If your looking for another tree a good indoor one is a fig tree. I've started an ivy and they can also be trimmed back very heavily I'm told, though they take a long time to get good trunk taper I think but an easy side project while your training other trees. I don't know if you can tell but I find bonzai very adictive but maby I just naturally have an adictive personality. You'll know when the bonzai bug bites!
Oh.. one last thing if you want to see that pic you can just click on the red x's properties and it will show it's address.

The pot it currantly has should be alright, it's deeper and not as wide but for the size of the tree it seems to work fine. I've figured out the effects of the cold; the newer growth is a bit droopy and discolored but it is perking up nicly in the sun. In the meantime I'm trying to figure out a basic outline for it and determine what style of bonsai would work best with it. After all training should have purpose right? It can't be randow so it's best to know where you need to get branches and where you don't. I'm thinking maybe upright formal, or broom style would work best with my particular tree. No use trying to make a cascade out of something straight trunked!

I'm glad to hear it's alright! I wish I knew more about your trees growth habit. I there any way to post a pic. Generally in bonzai a lot of people focus on growing the the trunk taper then start worrying about the branches because banches that have been growing with the trunk are usualy to big in preportion. The best thing to do is to leave lower shoots on because they will help the bottom of the trunk become larger while pinching out the top to incourage more twiggyness(lack of better word ) Then in the future cutting back the lower branches. What I do know about arboricola is it can be defoliated once a year due to it's rapid growth. This is also why it can be trimmed back so much. Also when this is done it makes the leaves smaller. With the styles your thinking of(especialy broom) I think you could just pick your main braches you want and just always keep them short, like very close to the trunk untill your satisfied with the taper and then just pinch out the growing tips after each leaflet comes out to make it twiggy. I hope this gives you some ideas and helps your insperation grow! I've also heard they require very little water and the less you water the smaller the leaves become but I'd save the starvation untill your happy with the trunk. Have you been doing much reading on bonzai. I've found that it's an art that requires much patience and in all that time that your doing nothing lots of reading . I find it makes me feel more confident about what I want to do in the future and more comfortable with the process in both doing it and not doing anything!

Trust me I've been doing a lot of reading. I have one especailly great book that is VERY detailed, but I wanted your opinion on something. The trunk has been cut at the top so it's almost like a stick with two main branches erm branching out with tons of smaller ones branching of of those. I'm guessing it was a cutting of a larger one due to the uniqueness of the trunk, what would you suggest for getting it to taper? As I don't think I've yet found a style that doesn't require tapering. I'm not sure what to do! I've been to a bunch of websites but all they say is to get a taper, they arn't to helpful on how to make it taper. My last resort is to cut off one of the main branches to make a new trunk, but they are so beautiful so I really don't want to do that. Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I am deciding what to do while it recovers. Also I'm thinking of keeping it as a shohin bonsai, which is smaller than 15cm. Currantly it's no where near as big, which gives me lots of time to work on the trunk if I start now, also it is very flexible! So I want to start as soon as the effects of the cold have been healed.

Your last resort being to cut one of the branches to make a new trunk. Do you meen that the branches are already to wide? If that's the case then you might be better off cutting both branches to get two new possible bonzai and hope that the stump gets new shoots which is likely.
About fattening up the trunk in general pacience is absoloultly esential. With out door trees it's best to just put them in the ground for a few years and then dig it up and cut back the roots progressivly depending on what spieces of tree. With indoor trees this isn't posible so all you can realy do is put it in a very large planter with incredibly porous compost. Come to think of it, now that I've learned that your tree requires very little watering a huge planter with mostly sphagnum moss at the bottom would probably work best. With less watering the tree will also be growing a larger root system trying to serch for water which will greatly inprove the thickness of base.

The branches arn't too wide, but the are wide enough that if I cut one off, with a small portion of the trunk it would make a new extension of the trunk if you will. Meanwhile, I've been to the gardening store and I saw some absolutly beautiful aboricola bonsai, that like me the had the same problem. They ended up cutting of one of the main branches or encouraged sprouts from the very top of the trunk, I'm hoping to do the second one, any ideas for helping that along? New growth is already shooting out along the branches so I'm thinking now would be the time to look for new shoots along the top as well. Currantly it is in a pot which is about as deep as it is tall and wide as it is wide, the roots have a good deal of room to grow. Also there is a good deal more moss on top than I'd once thought so I'm hoping that underneath that is a thicker base to the trunk, I shall investigate.

Um just to clarify further my 'last resort'. If I cut one of the branches off with the small portion of the trunk the remaining branch would be the new top of the trunk, as flexible as it is it could easily be bent straight to match the rest. With that idea, I'd get an excellant taper quickly by the looks of that branch, however I really don't want to go to such measures, I'd be much happier getting shoots from the top and waiting the extra time, pruning only the sides and the roots if the need it while the top shoots develop.

I've found a picture that resembles mine closly, Take a look at this:

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It is almost exactly the same except the two main branches closest to the the top are non-existant and the to existant ones are much fuller, with at least a dozen tiny branches branching off of them. Do you see how the trunk is very stick like? Kind of like it was cut from another and sprouted new branches? That's my problem, only worse because I don't have those two main branches extreamly close to the top, mine are in the same spot as the ones lower to the ground. Hope you can help.

Agian another image with the same stick-like trunk. Please ignore the extra branches.

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It would be best to remove all of that new growth other wise the tree will send all of it's growing energy into the branches instead and their would be little chance of it getting new buds on the trunk. I've heard of a technique were you make a cut into the cambnium layer(don't know if it's spelled right) under a possible bud to force it to form a new shoot. The possible bud will simply be a little bump(tell me if you find some their very small) probably white or brown. We'll have to look around to get details on it but it might work. Last thing for now. By stick you meen that it's the same width the whole way right. Broom doesn't requier to much of a difference just a little wider at the roots that are exposed.

Alright I will look for any new buds near the top, and by stick I do mean all the same width. Anyway I will investigate underneath the moss and check for buds and get back to you later today. Thanks again!