Brian Van Fleet
Pretty Fly for a Bonsai Guy
Yikes! I was actually referring to my own redneck setup, which shows to a better effect when I crop out shelves of chemicals and the Crimson Tide picture on the wall beside the old Japanese scroll.
Indoor Bonsai Displays: Let's see them!!!
- Thread starter Vinnie Charity
- Start date
Smoke
Ignore-Amus
Damn it, now I have to go back a page and look at it again. I some how missed the chemicals.
Forsoothe!
Imperial Masterpiece
A nice small green house off the back of my garage. In the dead of winter...
Or a sunny day, but still winter...
Or a sunny day, but still winter...
cheap_walmart_art
Omono
Could we get a pic of the outside? I'd love to build something similar in the next couple years and I'm always in the market for inspirado!
coachspinks
Chumono
Have the authorities ever come knocking? Wondering where that strange glow was coming from and why your electric meter was spinning so quick! I ask because I had the police stop at my house once and ask me what I was growing in my greenhouse.
amatbrewer
Shohin
Now that is what I would call a FrankenGreenhouse!
No offence meant, as someone who would rather tinker with building a solution out of what I already have than purchase one (even if it ends up costing twice as much) I have more than my share of Franken solutions.
No offence meant, as someone who would rather tinker with building a solution out of what I already have than purchase one (even if it ends up costing twice as much) I have more than my share of Franken solutions.
Vinnie Charity
Shohin
Great looking setup!!! The light seem to do ok with all of that humidity, how long have they been in there?
They are here since the beginning of october and growing strong. Portulacaria Afra, Ficus Benjamina, Ficus Microcarpa and Shefflera Arboricala (best at growing aerial roots)
I imagine that my neighbors are curious, as well. Seeing that I live in a "village", we don't have any local law enforcement. They'd have to be pretty concerned to call the county sheriff.
No offense taken. I take pride in the skill. I love to tinker. Bonsai is the ultimate tinkering hobby. I picked up a few tricks on indoor growing in my younger days. We have a spare bedroom we weren't doing much in. I live in a townhouse with a horribly small back patio. So I took advantage.
amatbrewer
Shohin
Think so? Try home brewing.
I have converted SS shelves (Costco), with cut up kegs, cpvc pipe, 15gal water cooler, and 12V (old laptop power supply) hot water circulation pumps to make my brewery. I converted a freezer into a "kegerator" that allows me to do controlled temperature fermentation and/or dispense my beer. I even converted a 10gal eye wash station into a fermentation tank (had to rig pulleys on the ceiling of my garage to get it in/out of the kegerator). I have also converted a PC fan (with the addition of magnets recovered from old hard drives) into a stir plate for propagating yeast. And I have not even come close to what some home brewers do. Home brewing is a tinkerers dream...and the end result is BEER!
Very true!! I kinda forget until you mentioned it. I have made few batches myself. I made an Amber once and I have made an i.p.a.
I did a couple batches of mean also
Infact my first go at mead I ended up with.a super good batch. It had a hint of smoke and vanilla. Almost like bourbon. It was really dry. I personally didn't like how dry it was but everyone said it was good. I tried to reproduce it amd didn't have much luck. I would still be doing it if I had more space. We r house shopping and that's my only need is space do more projects
Forsoothe!
Imperial Masterpiece
This house was shifted to one side of the lot because it had a side entrance garage. I remodeled this house to use the extra 18' to build a new attached garage to accommodate a workshop beside the front 2 1/2 spaces, and a storage stall one car wide forward of the outboard stall, and a porch off the rear wall that I was going to make into a greenhouse. Originally, The roof overhang you see was intended to be at the same slope as the glass would be, so the glass would butt-up to the roof and continue that pitch. But, they make houses differently now. The underside of that half roof just had the ceiling joists and was finished with aluminum soffit panels. I thought it would have 3/4" plywood across the whole surface with aluminum trim on that. They don't do that any more. That makes for more air passing through to the attic to cool the roof in summer. I suppose. But that meant that I couldn't seal off the greenhouse from the attic, and the always high humidity would have been catestrophic, creating a black mold haven. So I had to reduce the pitch of the greenhouse roof and terminate it against the brick with an open space so any heat or humidity could escape to the atmosphere, not to the house. But it looks funny.
Needless to say, snowload can be problematic and occasionally I have to trudge through a heavy snow at midnight to rake snow off the roof and the glass, too. Whenever we have a southeasterly blown snow that's wet, a huge drift builds up on the edge of the roof overhanging the glass. The original pitch and attachment at the roof would have eliminated the 30" step down from the roof to the glass. That step means that if a drift builds up and then slides off the roof it could crush the glass. No easy answers.
The inside dimensions are 6 feet wide by 21 feet long. It has a ventless gas heater, sink with hot & cold water, two waterproof florescent lights and two electrical outlets. I run a fan up high for constant circulation. The two lower left roof panels are hinged at the front glass and can open all the way forward (outboard, in front of the vertical panels). Usually, I just have them propped open about 4 inches during summer, and place screen panels on the six large roof panels to make it cooler. That works really well.
I started building elaborate coldframes out of old sash from the curbside supply store 40 years ago, so this is about my 6th attempt. You are looking at an aluminum box & angle frame to which are mounted 38" x 80" storm doors plus one door actually used as a door. The smaller roof panels are polycabonate. There is something less than $2,000 in aluminum & glass here. My final cold frame/greenhouse before this one was a lot higher class than #1 which was pretty crude, -all old wood, set on the ground at the head of my garden, and that rotted in about 5 or 6 years. #2 & 3 were wood, too, but a bolted assembly that I kept in the basement from June to March and assembled on my concrete patio each late winter. They lasted longer. #1 and 2 had flat tops and #3 had a 60° peaked top. Each one got about one panel bigger and more sophisticated. They all could be heated in the worst weather with one or two 150 watt lightbulbs in shop trouble lights. I could step into #3 & 4, and #5 was a real advance in aluminum with four door panels, as always from the curbside or dumpster hardware store.
The cement blocks were set on 12" square patio blocks and gave me plenty of room inside to walk down the center aisle. I heated it with one 600 watt calrod unit, ventilated it with an automatic bi-metal spring door. Both top panels opened entirely (just like #6, the current one). I had 2" x 12"s that married on top of the open hinge panels to give me two good perches for plants out in full sun. Not having the passage through the cement block was just a matter of it being a whole lot easier to design & build. They don't make block in sizes that I could combine to get the dimensions I needed, so I just did it the easy way which I do not regret. The door was high enough so it never got snowed shut! This is a dry block assembly which does not frost-heave. (The tall chainlink fence lines you see in the background were permanent trellises for peas, cukes, squash and tomatoes. They too, came from junk at construction sites, along with the cement feet attached, that I dug big holes for and were an innovation worth remembering. I now use a smaller, moveable set of chainlink panels rotated from bed-to-bed for snap peas, and have fixed 2" pipes in 3 beds that I attach to with zip ties, and two 12" square x 7' tall box aluminum frames that also rotate for tomatos and cukes.)
This is an assembly that has only 12 SS bolts and 4 hinge pins holding the six panels together, so when I moved to my new home, I gave it to my sister.
When my sister's son got married to a gardener, it disassembled once more and now another budding gardener has a neat tool!
Build it, and they will grow!
Needless to say, snowload can be problematic and occasionally I have to trudge through a heavy snow at midnight to rake snow off the roof and the glass, too. Whenever we have a southeasterly blown snow that's wet, a huge drift builds up on the edge of the roof overhanging the glass. The original pitch and attachment at the roof would have eliminated the 30" step down from the roof to the glass. That step means that if a drift builds up and then slides off the roof it could crush the glass. No easy answers.
The inside dimensions are 6 feet wide by 21 feet long. It has a ventless gas heater, sink with hot & cold water, two waterproof florescent lights and two electrical outlets. I run a fan up high for constant circulation. The two lower left roof panels are hinged at the front glass and can open all the way forward (outboard, in front of the vertical panels). Usually, I just have them propped open about 4 inches during summer, and place screen panels on the six large roof panels to make it cooler. That works really well.
I started building elaborate coldframes out of old sash from the curbside supply store 40 years ago, so this is about my 6th attempt. You are looking at an aluminum box & angle frame to which are mounted 38" x 80" storm doors plus one door actually used as a door. The smaller roof panels are polycabonate. There is something less than $2,000 in aluminum & glass here. My final cold frame/greenhouse before this one was a lot higher class than #1 which was pretty crude, -all old wood, set on the ground at the head of my garden, and that rotted in about 5 or 6 years. #2 & 3 were wood, too, but a bolted assembly that I kept in the basement from June to March and assembled on my concrete patio each late winter. They lasted longer. #1 and 2 had flat tops and #3 had a 60° peaked top. Each one got about one panel bigger and more sophisticated. They all could be heated in the worst weather with one or two 150 watt lightbulbs in shop trouble lights. I could step into #3 & 4, and #5 was a real advance in aluminum with four door panels, as always from the curbside or dumpster hardware store.
The cement blocks were set on 12" square patio blocks and gave me plenty of room inside to walk down the center aisle. I heated it with one 600 watt calrod unit, ventilated it with an automatic bi-metal spring door. Both top panels opened entirely (just like #6, the current one). I had 2" x 12"s that married on top of the open hinge panels to give me two good perches for plants out in full sun. Not having the passage through the cement block was just a matter of it being a whole lot easier to design & build. They don't make block in sizes that I could combine to get the dimensions I needed, so I just did it the easy way which I do not regret. The door was high enough so it never got snowed shut! This is a dry block assembly which does not frost-heave. (The tall chainlink fence lines you see in the background were permanent trellises for peas, cukes, squash and tomatoes. They too, came from junk at construction sites, along with the cement feet attached, that I dug big holes for and were an innovation worth remembering. I now use a smaller, moveable set of chainlink panels rotated from bed-to-bed for snap peas, and have fixed 2" pipes in 3 beds that I attach to with zip ties, and two 12" square x 7' tall box aluminum frames that also rotate for tomatos and cukes.)
This is an assembly that has only 12 SS bolts and 4 hinge pins holding the six panels together, so when I moved to my new home, I gave it to my sister.
When my sister's son got married to a gardener, it disassembled once more and now another budding gardener has a neat tool!
Build it, and they will grow!
Last edited:
Forsoothe!
Imperial Masterpiece
My kind of guy! Build it, and they'll drink!
Forsoothie. Looks like you put a lot of hard work into your home. I think u did a good job and have made great use of the space.
We have issues with snow accumulation and roof damagme in our area too. Have you ever looked into a tin roof? I understand how challaning the snow can be. To maybe to you could run a low voltage bare wire with resistance to create some heat and use as a defrost?
We have issues with snow accumulation and roof damagme in our area too. Have you ever looked into a tin roof? I understand how challaning the snow can be. To maybe to you could run a low voltage bare wire with resistance to create some heat and use as a defrost?
Forsoothe!
Imperial Masterpiece
Tin roofs have their own set of problems. I wanted a metal roof when I remodeled, but couldn't find a vendor close by. It was uncommon on ordinary homes in 2008, unlike today. I hear advertisements on the radio everyday. I got one quote for $45,000 and a 20 year guarantee verses a standard roof for $14,000 and a 45 year guarantee. It wasn't a hard decision. The one big shortcoming for metal roofs are snowbanks sliding off èn mass as they melt. You don't want to be walking by one when it sheds a hundred-square-foot block of melting snow. They have little fins near the edge to break that up, but I have a covered boat hoist with one, and occasionally I see it happen. Whooomp! The wires work for reducing damage from ice dams, but I don't have that problem, it's just the occasional heavy snow form the east or southeast. No easy answers here.
I would advise anyone considering building a greenhouse: you want a steep angle on the roof. It will snow.
I would advise anyone considering building a greenhouse: you want a steep angle on the roof. It will snow.
Last edited:
Vance Wood
Lord Mugo
Not looking to rip you a new one, proverbially, but this post goes to show that for the most part, most indoor bonsai are not mature looking bonsai and are not likely to survive more than a few years and develop, much beyond what you see here. For the most part most indoor bonsai look like beginner mallsai at best. Ultimately; to really develop good trees indoors you will need better light and a heated environment like a green house. You can get mad at the truth but there it is and yes I have tried it and found it to be more work than value produced. I still have stuff indoors that have to come in or die in the winter weather that go straight outdoors and soon as the weather allows.Yeah, I started this thread @atlarsenal, @GSCarlson and @Smoke and I just realized this may be the wrong area to post. However, the title "Bonsai Displays" is sort of what the post is going for. For people displaying their indoor bonsai setups right?
-Vin
Similar threads
