Orlando Bonsai Buttonwood

Buttonwood (Purchased from Mary Madison 2002) Orlando Bonsai Store

Repotted into training pot - March 2002

May 2003 tree was repotted into wider pot. Long crossing deadwood was shortened and carved.

A lot has happened to this tree over the past year. It began to have problems with the leaves. They would start out normally but soon get a bit of a rust color to them and soon fall off. I have defoliated the tree completely to hopefully rid the tree of the problem. In the meantime I sent samples of the leaves to Dr. Nina Shishkoff (PhD in Plant Pathology) in in order to determine what the problem actually is. There really are no known diseases or insect problems for Buttonwoods so this was a mystery. The following is her report on what she believes the problem to be. (April 2005)

I'm happy to report that I was able to save this tree. With the hard pruning and some Isotox I was able to get this tree back to healthy state. I was afraid I was actually going to have to destroy this tree, but luckily the combination of the two processes made the difference. July 2005

When I returned from Japan this tree looked different to me. I say that the branches were too straight and too far from the trunk. I bent them all down and closer to the trunk. This made the trunk look much bigger and now the branches matched the movement of the trunk. I also repotted the tree into an oval pot, however I found it to look to unstable. I added a rock to help thicken the base and found this tree worked very well as a root over rock. Aug 2006

Not many changes to report over the past 6 months. I want to focus on leaf reduction this year and get the canopy much healthier and compact. We'll see. Mar 2007

The tree has extremely interesting deadwood. One coat of lime sulfur had been applied by this point.

The tree has really started putting out new branches and starting to fill in a lot of bare areas. Still need all summer to get this one looking right. June 2004

12-27-04

"I got the leaves today and looked at them: they were covered with minute mites (that is, really *small* mites, even for mites). Not only that, the mites had four legs pointing forward and four pointing backward, which to me (not an entomologist) spells eriophyid mite. And eriophyid mites cause warty rusty patches on leaves of many hosts So I did a Google search of "Conocarpus eriophyid" and got the following:

"ORNAMENTALS, WOODY PLANTS AND PALMS:
Conocarpus erectus var. sericeus (silver buttonwood, a native species)-- Aceria sp., an eriophyid mite: A moderate to severe infestation was found at a restored wetland in Pembroke Pines (Broward County; E2001-4181; Maria S. Quintanilla and Dr. W.C. 'Cal' Welbourn; 10 October 2001). This probably is a new species. It is likely to be responsible for the recent leaf distortion damage observed on buttonwood trees in South Florida. Pruning will temporarily eliminate the damage because most of the mites are in the growing tips; however, in time, populations rebuild and damage re-appears (Dr. W.C. 'Cal' Welbourn)."

So that's my snap judgement: I'm still culturing the
leaves to see if anything else comes out (that might take a week). Talk to Florida Cooperative Extension on what miticide to use.

Happy to have a reasonable-sounding answer:"

1-6-05

I isolated the fungus Phoma from leaves. This is a tricky thing: most Phomas are secondary pathogens, and could easily be colonizing tissue that's been wounded by other things (such as mites). However, there are a few Phomas that are serious pathogens. Since I have no records of any phomas on Conocarpus, there's no way of knowing. The damage doesn't look fungal (the
lesions on leaves haven't expanded since I've been
incubating them), so I'm going with mites, but it
could be a combination. You could spray with a general fungicide for leaf spots (*not* rust) and see if it helps.

To think I was actually considering destroying this tree at one point because of the insect problem. Well it has returned and is looking better than ever. I want to thicken the canopy a bit more to get a nice solid green outline. I am also playing with the idea of changing the pot, however I have always seen this tree in a round pot for some reason. Sept. 2005

There are times when things just come together, and this is one of them. By rewiring this tree, and repotting it the tree now looks stable and balanced. I still need to develop side branches near the top but that won't take long. Next step is to begin leaf reduction next spring and then this tree will really be something to see. Sept 2006

Repotted into a blue glazed pot. It really makes this tree's colors really stand out. It needs a new coat of lime sulfur, but it has come a long way. Apr 2008

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Case studies last updated: Jan. 2008