Hey Anita- Thanks so much for that very infomative link! That very well may be the problem- I did not know to remove all dried leaves- I have always used them with oak leaves for mulch to help them get though the unpredictably cold winters here. Thanks again! Julie

I have only a limited experience wiring branches, Tunny. But, until you get a more knowledgeable response (& you may find that on another forum ;o) here's my experience: Wiring will indeed shape trees. I've used brass brazing rod. Welders may just call these bronze rods but it seemed a good idea to me to use the ones that aren't coated with flux. Heavy copper wire and aluminum is what is used by the bonsai people. (I'm sure that bonsai wire can be ordered on the 'net.) Perhaps the heavy stuff available as electrical wiring would be suitable - I just don't know. Plastic insulation should actually help protect the branch and I see on Wikipedia that copper #3 wire is about 1/4" in diameter which is the heaviest gauge that is recommended in the primer on bonsai linked below. The key for my use was realizing that "heaviness" was a very important factor. You need to be able to bend the wire, that's true, but a branch will put constant pressure on the wire. Using a lighter gauge wire means that the branch will go back to it's original shape fairly quickly. Brazing wire is stronger than copper and such a large gauge shouldn't be necessary. Don't expect a quick fix if the branch is very strong. You may need to rewire a couple of times. And, of course, the branch may be too mature to even begin the process but you will know that soon enuf. Now, until you have comments from someone with more knowledge . . . digitS' Here is a link that might be useful: bonsai wiring

Hi everyone! Hope you're doing well. I'm back with a couple more questions, hope that's ok :) To give you some background, the tree has been doing pretty well. It has lots of new shoots from the snapped trunk and some new shoots or leaves from pretty much all the other trunks or branches. I noticed a couple of spots of mildew in between the braided trunks, which was quite hard to get to, but I think I've managed to wash them off and sprayed them with a neem oil solution. In the month I've had it I only watered it a tiny bit twice, because the soil close to the roots seemed to always be quite damp. Even though I barely watered it, I noticed a couple of fungus gnats in the soil the other day, so also sprayed the surface with a little bit of neem oil. I don't think the soil it was in was very good. I'm a newbie at all this, so not even going to attempt to guess what the soil was, but it was very dense, quite light brown in colour (in comparison to other plant soils I've seen) and it seemed to not be very draining at all. I didn't buy the plant in a proper gardening centre, but in Ikea, so maybe that explains a little bit. The rolled tips of leaves I mentioned in the first post were still there and I think there may be more there now. I replanted the tree yesterday, a month after buying it. The old soil was really densely packed, but I think I was pretty careful with getting the soil off, but it seems like there were barely any roots there on the plant. I looked at the spring repotting thread on the forum and there was probably half of the roots that I saw in the after pruning photo there and my tree has 5 trunks. It's got the main root bulb, but barely any new roots and seems like the bottom of the main root had been cut off. I inspected it for rotting and I don't think the roots were rotting. There was a large black/brown round spot on one of the roots, which was kind of wet, but when I tried to take the top layer off with my nail it seemed fine. just to be safe I cleaned it a little bit and sprayed some neem oil solution on it. I should have taken photos of everything, but I completely forgot. I used the type of soil you suggested. Looking back at it I think some of the bark pieces could have been even smaller, but it's definitely a lot better than previous soil. I wasn't able to find the fertiliser that had been recommended in the other threads, but I've found a similar one with NPK ratio of 8+3+5. It will probably be a week or so before it arrives though. It's just really surprising how few roots the tree has and a little worrying. My question was if there's anything that I can do to help it grow new roots? Does it grow roots fairly easily? Sorry for the long description and thank you for any help!

I've had my money tree for 6 months now and it has grown a whole foot taller since i got it. It was doing great up until about a month ago, when I noticed some of the new leaves were wrinkling. so i started watering it more, but the soil retains so much water and is normally wet for about a week after i water it. I dont want to give it root rot so ive only been watering it once every week and it was doing fine even after the leaves started wrinkling but then a week ago my money tree all of the sudden wilted really bad. The longest shoot it had is completely bent over and so are the rest. It gets partial sun for 4 hours a day and direct sun for 1 hour. It is in the basement but the sunlight didnt bother it before this week. I havent fertilized since i got it and read that you shouldnt fertilize this late in the year. Also most of the problems im finding include yellowing or browning leaves but there is no change in the color of the leaves. A lot of the leaves fallen off around the trunk but when i repoted I put it in a pretty big pot so i was just assuming it was growing to fit the pot since none of the leaves tward the top fell off and there was a lot of new growth Am i over watering, under watering, is it getting to little light?