Easy to Care for Indoor Bonsai

magicherb — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 03:44:18 +0000

Bonsai is a wonderful hobby. It combines art and nature, requires patience, develops skills (and more patience) and it adds something that I find quite beautiful to your life. Bonsai trees are very loosely classified as outdoor or indoor based on whether or not they’re likely to survive winter outdoors and whether or not they need a seasonal rest at a cooler temperature.
Trees that don’t require any cooling off period or major change in seasonal care are easier to look after than ones that do and that’s one of the reasons for the greater popularity of tropical and subtropical indoor bonsai trees. The other big reason is that you can display them in your home, while a tree like a pine or crabapple must be kept outdoors or it will not be around very long.
Most people choose to start a bonsai collection with indoor trees and if you’re looking for your first indoor tree or buying one as a gift it makes sense to start with the easiest trees. So after that rather long introduction – here is a quick list of some of the best indoor bonsai for a beginner. Each of these trees is reasonably tolerant of the relatively low light conditions in most homes, won’t roll up the carpet and die at the first small watering mistake and is not generally considered to be an irresistible magnet for pests or diseases. Some people and most bonsai sites will suggest that a Serissa should be part of this list and I used to agree, but I’ve had one too many customer complain to me that they just couldn’t figure out the right way to water a Serissa and it died. Others will argue that because many of the ficus will drop their leaves at the drop of a hat, they shouldn’t be on this list. But while I agree that they can be downright ornery, the leaves will grow back and the only people I know who lost a ficus (a.k.a. fig) because of leaf drop did so because they gave up too soon and basically tossed a sulking but still very much a live tree.
Which one is right for you? Well, that’s your choice and I wouldn’t choose based on any parameter that is more complex than which tree do you like the look of.
It’s not finished yet, but over the next week I’ll build a gallery of photos of what I consider to be the best indoor bonsai for beginners; Schefflera arboricola – the Dwarf Umbrella Tree, Portulacaria afra- best known as the mini jade, some members of the Ficus family, Ulmus parvifolia – the Chinese Elm and of course the ubiquitous Juniper procumbens.
Check out the gallery listing or just click here for Easiest Indoor Bonsai for Beginners

Magic Herb Garden » easy indoor bonsai tree

Easy to Care for Indoor Bonsai