A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The House Plant Forum Bonsai advice

Soo... I was at Lowe's and my particular Lowe's has a distressed plant rack. I purchased two plants from the rack, and one was a Bonsai tree. I looked them up, and cant find what type it is. Its also very close to being dead, but for $5 I thought I would give it a shot.

So, first I took off all the dead oval shaped leaves, and busted up the rocks that were glued down over the soil. While doing so, I found an assortment of bugs. Most were worm like, white ones and small brownish millipeeds.

So that sort of freaked me out, so I took the plant outside to finish the cleaning job, and scrubbed the pot out with antibacterial soap and hot water. I ran the roots with water until ALL the soil was gone, and noticed there were still wierd leach like bugs on some of the roots, so I did the questionable...

This was only a 5 dollar plant, and I wanted to at least try. And if I hadnt purchased it, someone else would have that probably would have killed the plant anyways. I dont know if the following is recommended.. but its what I did.

I soaked the plant in a very mild warm water, dish soap solution and kept rinsing off the bugs. when ALL the bugs were gone, I completly repotted it, and put it in the brightest spot of the window.

Through all the stress its been through now, and damage to the plant before I got it, do you think I have a chance at bringing it back? It does still have some very nice green leaves..

My fingers are crossed. What do you think?

Sounds right to me. I don't think you could have done much else. I hope it survives to give you many years of pleasure.

it does sound like you did well. my only question is what is the plant?

It sort of looks like this..

but I dont have a camera, so its not exact.

cool.

Very nice.

Do you guys know what type that is? Like I had mentioned, not the exact same plant, just same time. Mines a bit more rough looking at the moment

I've seen fica trees used as a bonsai,