Understanding Leaf Drop
It's late October and I'm seeing many different bonsai looking pretty ratty, including Chinese elms, Chinese peppers, black olives, Brazilian rain trees, privets and some ficus. There is nothing wrong with any of these trees, but they present a problem for me because I hate to ship a tree that will come out of the box looking bare. People don't react well to that. Even the remaining leaves look dull and about to drop. Many of them are about to drop. So what's the problem? Fall. Consider the Chinese elm. It can be grown as a deciduous tree, which drops all it's leaves in the fall or, if the conditions are carefully controlled to minimize the changes in available light,...