Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven. ~Rabindranath Tagore, Fireflies, 1928
Southern Bonsai Blog
Blog about lessons learned growing bonsai in the South
"What I like about bonsai is that it has a beginning but no end. A bud today becomes a branch tomorrow. --John Y. Naka
Indoor Bonsai
Wintertime in the South is a time that my house fills with all the tropical plants from my bench. Growing indoor bonsai can be a very rewarding experience especially if your new to bonsai and want to keep it close to you. Unfortunately, it can be the most frustrating start to your bonsai career. I started like many others have, with a juniper “mallsai”. It was a gift from my lovely wife. I made the classic bonsai beginner mistake and kept it inside for a couple of weeks. After reading through many of the sites linked to on this site, I figured out that a juniper is for outdoors only. My second purchase was a Ficus Microcarpa and a much better choice for indoor growing. Since then, I have purchased several tropical bonsai that I have enjoyed taking care of.
Each year, I experiment with lighting conditions for these indoor bonsai, and this year is no different. This year, I am trying a 24-inch fluorescent grow light for my smaller bonsai that was actually pretty cheap at Wal-Mart ($9.95). My ficus gets it’s own 100-watt 6500K daylight CFL and my jade gets a 75 watt desk lamp that does a terrible job. This seems to keep them barely happy for the winter months. I really can’t wait for the summer months to put them back outside. They seem much happier in the sunlight. I fully intend to create a new setup before next year that would include 3 24-inch fluorescents of different color temperatures. Apparently, when using florescent, you should try to vary the color temps to cover as much ground as possible. From 2700K to 6500K. Here’s some articles that I run across while doing my research:
Indoor Bonsai – As Difficult as You Make It
Growing Indoor Plants with Success
Ficus: Growing Indoors Under Light
Bonsai Bench
Bonsai Bench is a well put-together site that let’s users input care information for plant varieties used for bonsai. It’s an excellent concept and needs more user interaction to cover all the different varieties and zones that exist. If you have experience in bonsai and would like to contribute care information for a specific variety, I’d encourage you to do so. Hopefully, beginners will be able to use the site to find their tree in their zone and get specific information on the best times to prune and feed.
http://www.bonsaibench.com/
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.
