Alexandru -
Nice plant! You seem to care about it and want to learn more.

Few questions...
1. When you did the repot did you bare root and root prune?

2. What soil media did you use?

3. How often are you watering now?

4. Do you fertilize?
4a.If so what do you use and how often?

5. How much sunlight does this plant get?
5a. Ever get any true outdoors light?

6. Where are you located?

We're here to help, let's get this tree back on track!

Hi Treegeek, thanks for replying. I'll try to answer as precisely as I can.

1. No, I didn't root prune. First time I repoted 4 5 years ago, the roots were were wrapped around the soil. The second time I repoted, to the actual pot, 2 or 3 years ago the roots hadn't grown so much as the first time.

2. I used regular house plants potting soil with neutral ph (7 i think). The soil is rather airy, not dense or heavy. It has good drainage I think.

3. I'm watering once a week during winter time, and once every 4-5 days in summer. I pour approximately 1 liter of water. It is water from my own water source, so it is not treated with anything. I have just a couple of filters in place at the pump.

4. To be honest, not really. I put some fertilizer in the water especially from March to October, but not I'm not rigurous about it. I often forget. Then from October to March rarely. And I used some fertilizer for palm trees or tropical plants, found in the supermarket. I'm quite afraid of not using too much...

5. The tree is positioned near a glass door which is facing east, and there's another window facing south. I would say it has enough light from the end of March until October. Right now the sun rises at 8 and sets just after 5 in the evening, so pretty short days. Also most of the days it is overcast from November until March.

5a. I never got it outside, no. I wanted to, but never decided where I should position it, as to no have the foliage "burned" by direct sunlight.

6. Romania, Eastern Europe. Equivalent to USDA hardiness zone 7a to 6b.

Super!

Others will chime in, and probably do a much more in depth job than I. I'll start you off though with what I feel comfortable with.

1. No, I didn't root prune. First time I repoted 4 5 years ago, the roots were were wrapped around the soil. The second time I repoted, to the actual pot, 2 or 3 years ago the roots hadn't grown so much as the first time.

2. I used regular house plants potting soil with neutral ph (7 i think). The soil is rather airy, not dense or heavy. It has good drainage I think.

When the time comes, youre going to want to strip all that soil off, bare root it, and prune 1/3 of the roots away. Any that are old (brown), dead, circling, or taproot looking (growing straight down). Keep all the thin hairlike fibrous roots, they are what you need for a healthy plant. Get rid of all that bagged soil media is step one. [Here is a link you will find especially helpful![(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/why-root-prune-when-you-repot-dsvw-vd~2025020)

3. I'm watering once a week during winter time, and once every 4-5 days in summer. I pour approximately 1 liter of water. It is water from my own water source, so it is not treated with anything. I have just a couple of filters in place at the pump. Are any of these filters salt based? When you water, can you bring that big plant somewhere where youre flushing the soil well at least once a month? Don't water on a schedule, water when the plant needs it. Best way I have gleaned from others here it to use a wooden dowel (1/4" and 5/16" fit in a pencil sharpener!) and insert it all the way to the bottom of the pot. Count to ten and pull it out. If it's wet, wait to water. You want to water when just the sharpened tip of the dowel is moist. This thread is HUGE, and very intimidating. trust me, it will solve all your issues and get you back to enjoying this coffee tree! Take the time to read it and all the comments. TRUST ME! :)

4. To be honest, not really. I put some fertilizer in the water especially from March to October, but not I'm not rigurous about it. I often forget. Then from October to March rarely. And I used some fertilizer for palm trees or tropical plants, found in the supermarket. I'm quite afraid of not using too much... As you'll see in that thread, you want to use at least some fertilizer. if you don't have the desire, time, or want to add fert at a low dose at each watering, that's ok! At the very least add some Controlled Release Fertilizer (CRF). A lot of folks here (myself included) use Dynagro Folaige Pro 9-3-6. I use it at the maintenance dose which is 1/4tsp per gallon at each watering, and flush the soil often. Further reading and discussion on fertilize in containerized plants can be found here. Long read, but again, TRUST ME!

5. The tree is positioned near a glass door which is facing east, and there's another window facing south. I would say it has enough light from the end of March until October. Right now the sun rises at 8 and sets just after 5 in the evening, so pretty short days. Also most of the days it is overcast from November until March. I am by no means a Coffee tree grower, i'll let other determine if this is enough light or not. From what I have briefly read they are a tolerant species capable of full sun to limited light such as an east window.

5a. I never got it outside, no. I wanted to, but never decided where I should position it, as to no have the foliage "burned" by direct sunlight. It will love the outdoors, lets see what more experienced growers suggest for where to put it.

6. Romania, Eastern Europe. Equivalent to USDA hardiness zone 7a to 6b. Similar to me. Don't repot or prune until around the end of May. The plant will need to build up energy reserves after a dark winter, and this allows enough time for it to recover and rebuild more energy reserves after you work on it. Not that you can't do it all now, but the tree won't be happy about it. Patience.

Thanks a lot for the tips. I'll start putting in practice right away!

So, I've been doing some research and found this little bit of info I think is quite useful. It seems my coffee plant pretty much checks for Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium deficiencies.

I'll leave the link here just in case anyone else needs it:

https://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/RES-073.pdf

Meanwhile I've been trying to find a similar fertilizer to Dynagro Folliage Pro, with the same ratio of minerals, and it's quite hard here. Only lawn fertilizers have a 9-3-6 ratio (grain form, not soluble). The one I already have for palm tress and tropical plants is 9-4-5, so I'll use this one until I find something more suitable.

Others have suggested I don't wait until spring to prune back the tree, as it will lose even more leaves until then. Kind of on the fence about when to do it...

Hi again,

This year, at the end of March I tried to re pot the coffee tree and I fear it's turning into a disaster.

The tree was recovering nicely after the "winter stress", it had started to grow some green strong foliage, but as I hadn't re potted for about 4 years now, and never root pruned, I thought it would be about time, especially since I wanted to avoid if possible the leave fall off during winter.

I tried to bare root it, pruned about 1/3 (or less maybe) of the roots as indicated. There was some clay like soil between the roots which I removed as much as possible.

I placed the somewhat pruned and somewhat bare roots in nice new fresh soil with PH between 5.5 - 6.5, mixed with crushed volcanic rock. I even filled the bottom of the pot with about 1-2 inches of gravel for better drainage, over which I put in about 5 inches of soil and then the root ball, which I covered nicely with fresh soil.

After about two weeks some leaves started falling off, and it kept aggravating, and now the tree looks worse than in winter. Although it;s putting out a lot of new growth, older leaves keep falling off quite fast and I'm afraid i will lose it.

I can imagine it didn't like to be bare rooted, pruned and all, but I'm not sure either that it should be suffering so much. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thankss!