Why you cannot keep bonsai trees indoors

[Desert O'Piñon]

Lest we not judge him by a single datapoint...

Exactly. We have plenty of very wise bonsai people here who come across as abrasive or blunt, but probably aren't that way at all. (I prefer a straight, direct answer anyway; don't try to spare my feelings. Just hit me with the truth)
I'm all for giving the benefit of the doubt, especially if you can't verify the tone or intent, and this is a good opportunity for me to practice not jumping to conclusions. I think we can grow good will along with our knowledge and trees.

 

[Michigan Tree Murderer]

3 different Chinese elms, 2 golden gate Ficus trees, 1 olive tree, 1 juniper on a mound (outside now due to small bugs showing up and I didn't want to have insecticide inside with the kids and the dogs; will probably keep that one outdoors for a while), 1 miniature Ginseng Ficus. Oldest is one of the Chinese elms and the newest is the Ginseng.

I was with ya, until you put one outside.

 

[Fidur]

We know any bonsai can be kept and even thrive indoors in a paludarium Tachiko (Azuma Makoto), but it's just too expensive... so the best option remains to keep them outdoors.

 

[leatherback]

Please show your bonsai that you have grown indoors for 7 years.

 

[rockm]

I joined this forum just to comment on this topic because of the very, very liberal use of data extrapolation using a single data point (which means the extrapolation is not an extrapolation with only one data point.....it is a guess). I only have 7 or so years with bonsai, but every bonsai I have is healthy (8 and growing...no pun intended). All but one is indoors. Do any of the "hard outsiders" have indoor house plants? Like ponytail palms, traditional majesty palms, succulents, etc. (i.e. plants that are mostly sold for outdoor planting). I have a very large ponytail palm outside (about 11-12 feet tall now) that lived inside for 11 years and grew too big to be inside, so I planted outside. Now I have another sitting right next to me at my desk, and it is growing like crazy. Yes, I know these aren't bonsai trees, but I purchase and care for plants that I will enjoy every day.

Living in South Texas, you don't want to be on your back porch from Easter until fall because it is flaming hot. You can go out after dark, but then you have to battle with the mosquitos. In other words, if all I am doing with a bonsai outdoors is going out to water, fertilize and tend to it for 5 sweaty minutes a day, I don't want it. I want to see it and enjoy it all the time. And that is exactly what I do without going to any extremes (my only set up being a bonsai tree in a pot sitting on some rocks in a tray with regular tap water in it). All of the trees/plants that call for full, direct sunlight are right next to a window. I'm sure some critical spectrum of light that is being filtered by a window is going to kill all living things inside, but the plants and bonsai don't really seem to agree. I'm also sure big solar flares do something to plants too, but who cares. Darwin owns that outcome.

If you live in a more temperate environment and can enjoy an outdoor garden, awesome. I can't and won't and will continue to enjoy my bonsai just as I am doing right now as I write this...indoors. And "beginners" are not one single group of stupid, inept people who put bonsai on coffee tables and believe everything some teenager told them at Lowe's about caring for bonsai. To me, making generalities about "beginners" is no different than making sweeping absolutes that every bonsai HAS to be outdoors, or it will die a horrible, grisly death and be buried as a barren, twisty stick.

"Always the same. Some singular examples how singles survive..." with some marijuana grow set up. It sounds a lot like all of the singular examples of growing a bonsai indoors and it died...which absolutely PROVES that bonsai can't live indoors...nothing about their own "skills" in growing living plants....THEY did everything right, but man, it just died because, well, it was indoors...

Simply. Isn’t. True. Sorry just not. You sound as though you very little experience with more than one or two species. Species that are likely tropical in origin. Or at least sub tropical.

Long experience with bonsai told me that growing bonsai indoors is mostly a death sentence for the tree involved. I killed some trees. Learned that it’s easier to keep outdoor bonsai. And FWIW I use collected Texas native species from live oak to cedar elm to bald cypress. Have had them for decades and if I brought them inside they would die

Show us your trees That says alot about where you’re coming from

Fwiw this is my live oak collected near Sallado in 1993

 

[Michael P]

Trolling, trolling, trolling along.

 

[Desert O'Piñon]

Trolling, trolling, trolling along.

Yes, exactly!

Troll, troll, troll your boat;
You don't get a vote!
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Your trees are not the G.O.A.T.
LOL

 

[Chisai Ki]

Wow! This is a lot of information! I frequently read that Fukien Tea bonsais need/can be kept indoors. I put mine outside in the warmer months and winter it inside. Is it an indoor or outdoor only tree?

Thank you!

 

[Paradox]

3 different Chinese elms, 2 golden gate Ficus trees, 1 olive tree, 1 juniper on a mound (outside now due to small bugs showing up and I didn't want to have insecticide inside with the kids and the dogs; will probably keep that one outdoors for a while), 1 miniature Ginseng Ficus. Oldest is one of the Chinese elms and the newest is the Ginseng.

Ficus can be inside, they have been grown inside by many.
The Chinese elms seem to be more of a middle ground, some say they can be grown indoors, others day they will survive for a few years then decline. I mentioned them in my post in this thread.
Olive, I am not sure about as I have never kept them but my understanding is they come from a warmer climate and might be OK inside.
Juniper, one guy Jack Winkle was able to keep them inside for many years under lighting and a controlled environment.

So I would argue most of the species you have listed are ones that either have been proven to be able to be kept inside or are in a somewhat dubious/unproven status when it comes to inside.

Brazilian rain tree is another that supposedly can be ok inside with supplemental lighting.
I have kept ficus and BRT inside for an 18 month stretch and they did OK. I routinely keep them inside over the winter October-May and they do fine for me but I know they would do much better if they were kept outside in the conditions they prefer which just isnt possible up here in the winter.

I have 3 Chinese elms and they stay outside, on the bench in the summer and in a cold frame all winter.

A Japanese maple or Black pine will not survive inside year-round, which I think are the kinds of trees most are thinking of

 

[Desert O'Piñon]

Wow! This is a lot of information! I frequently read that Fukien Tea bonsais need/can be kept indoors. I put mine outside in the warmer months and winter it inside. Is it an indoor or outdoor only tree?

Thank you!

Don't get me started on how terrible I am with this species! I have completely removed the life from three. I feel that is enough success for one person's contribution to species population control.
Fukien Tea, from my understanding, is exceptionally temperamental. Pretty sure they are tropical, but they don't like desert climate at all. If whatever you are doing is working, then keep doing it.
Two schools of thought:
Common sense says "If it ain't broken, don't fix it."
Government thinking says "If it ain't broken, fix it till it is."

If you add at least a USDA zone (a slightly more specific area, such as state, would be even better) will help us give you better custom advice.

 

[Chisai Ki]

I am in zone 5.

 

[alphaparrot]

No, it isn't marketing, it's physics and biology . The angle of sunlight as it passes through our atmosphere affects the color of the light. In the summertime the sunlight in the northern hemisphere is more direct, and has a blue tone. In the fall and winter, the northern hemisphere leans away from the sun, so the sunlight comes through the atmosphere at a different angle, producing more red tones.

In the summertime sunlight has more of a bluish tone and plants do much better with this wavelength. Introducing reddish tones simulates fall and winter sunlight wavelengths, and signals to flowering plants that it's time to drop fruit so the seeds can get ready for springtime...

The scattering of blue light by the atmosphere is a geometric effect, yes, but the vast majority of scattered blue light still makes it to the surface. Consider the true-colour images of Earth from the DSCOVR instrument on the EPIC spacecraft. Look at the ocean. Water reflects very little light, and the deep ocean is nearly black under direct illumination, so most of the reflected colour you get in these parts of the image is from the atmosphere itself. Even near the Earth's limb, it's actually not that blue. More blue than in the middle of the disk, yes, but there's really not much blue light being scattered back into space. At a 45-degree sun angle, or roughly midday at 45 degrees latitude on March 21, when plants at that latitude are maybe starting to consider budding out (or perhaps starting to flower in warmer parts of that latitude), almost all the blue light does make it to the ground, so there's not much effective difference in light colour throughout the growing season, even if the direct beam is less blue than the indirect scattered light from the atmosphere. To the extent that different kinds of light promote different kinds of growth, I suspect that's more about intensity and time of year than it is colour. Blue light is more energetic than red light, so changing the colour balance of the LED changes the energy intensity of the light. Jelle is right that the reason growlights have red and blue LEDs is not because of atmospheric scattering but because that's the part of the spectrum chlorophyll absorbs. This is also why leaves are green; the leaves are "rejecting" the green part of the spectrum. That's because a light receiver tuned to the steeper parts of the spectrum has optimal efficiency when it comes to not saturating under full light while still harvesting plenty of energy in a dappled setting (i.e. in a forest canopy). So if you're using an LED to grow plants indoors, you can deliver a closer approximation of their energy needs with less power consumption if you just leave out the parts of the spectrum they don't use anyway (or at least, don't use for photosynthesis--many people have noted across horticultural fields that plants are often more robust when they have exposure to UV and other parts of the spectrum they don't use for photosynthesis).

When discussing why trees can or cannot be grown indoors I think it makes sense to think not only about what environmental factors need to be present, but also what lifecycle processes the trees must undergo to be healthy. Humans need a certain amount of sunlight, food containing a certain range of nutrients and a certain amount of calories, a certain amount of water, and ambient temperatures in a particular range, just like trees do. But if you don't let a human sleep for too long, that human invariably dies--because there are certain biological processes that only happen when we sleep, without which we cannot function for long. So for example, a temperature deciduous tree must go through a dormancy period, and it must go through a cool-down period to get to that dormancy period--because they need to start storing and converting nutrients for the spring growth flush. Without going through the dormancy, the tree will still try to do that when it thinks it might be spring, but without that dormant period, it will exhaust itself, just like a person on no sleep. So if people want to keep trees indoors, the question is really how do you get the tree to go through all the normal biological cycles that are necessary for a healthy tree? For a temperate deciduous tree, it simply can't be done. I'm experimenting with a couple of maple seedlings and saplings, which I grow indoors under bright growlights during the growing season, because I don't have access to a sufficiently bright sunlit outdoor space (and also, conveniently, don't have air conditioning inside). But I do have access to a very sheltered, fairly dark outdoor space, which is where they spend the winters, after some time in that less-sunlit outdoor space in the fall. Because you cannot get a temperate deciduous tree into dormancy with indoor temperatures, unless you make your home unlivable for humans. I'm still not sure this will work long-term, and I'm hoping I won't live in a space without outdoor space long-term. ANd it certainly wouldn't work for conifers, which also need to photosynthesize during their dormant period. Tropicals have different requirements. I have a Ficus benjamina that is indoors under growlights year-round, but I vary the photoperiod throughout the year, along with the watering and feeding schedule (and the humidity, which varies naturally due to my lack of AC), because all plants evolved a biological rhythm to go with the seasons, and replicating the environmental triggers for that biorhythm is a requirement for plant health. If someone has an indoor space and setup with which they can trigger the required biorhythms for the right durations for a particular species, then it'll probably work (even if the tree would be more robust outside). If not, the tree will suffer.

 

[Attmos]

The scattering of blue light by the atmosphere is a geometric effect, yes, but the vast majority of scattered blue light still makes it to the surface. Consider the true-colour images of Earth from the DSCOVR instrument on the EPIC spacecraft. Look at the ocean. Water reflects very little light, and the deep ocean is nearly black under direct illumination, so most of the reflected colour you get in these parts of the image is from the atmosphere itself. Even near the Earth's limb, it's actually not that blue. More blue than in the middle of the disk, yes, but there's really not much blue light being scattered back into space. At a 45-degree sun angle, or roughly midday at 45 degrees latitude on March 21, when plants at that latitude are maybe starting to consider budding out (or perhaps starting to flower in warmer parts of that latitude), almost all the blue light does make it to the ground, so there's not much effective difference in light colour throughout the growing season, even if the direct beam is less blue than the indirect scattered light from the atmosphere. To the extent that different kinds of light promote different kinds of growth, I suspect that's more about intensity and time of year than it is colour. Blue light is more energetic than red light, so changing the colour balance of the LED changes the energy intensity of the light. Jelle is right that the reason growlights have red and blue LEDs is not because of atmospheric scattering but because that's the part of the spectrum chlorophyll absorbs. This is also why leaves are green; the leaves are "rejecting" the green part of the spectrum. That's because a light receiver tuned to the steeper parts of the spectrum has optimal efficiency when it comes to not saturating under full light while still harvesting plenty of energy in a dappled setting (i.e. in a forest canopy). So if you're using an LED to grow plants indoors, you can deliver a closer approximation of their energy needs with less power consumption if you just leave out the parts of the spectrum they don't use anyway (or at least, don't use for photosynthesis--many people have noted across horticultural fields that plants are often more robust when they have exposure to UV and other parts of the spectrum they don't use for photosynthesis).

When discussing why trees can or cannot be grown indoors I think it makes sense to think not only about what environmental factors need to be present, but also what lifecycle processes the trees must undergo to be healthy. Humans need a certain amount of sunlight, food containing a certain range of nutrients and a certain amount of calories, a certain amount of water, and ambient temperatures in a particular range, just like trees do. But if you don't let a human sleep for too long, that human invariably dies--because there are certain biological processes that only happen when we sleep, without which we cannot function for long. So for example, a temperature deciduous tree must go through a dormancy period, and it must go through a cool-down period to get to that dormancy period--because they need to start storing and converting nutrients for the spring growth flush. Without going through the dormancy, the tree will still try to do that when it thinks it might be spring, but without that dormant period, it will exhaust itself, just like a person on no sleep. So if people want to keep trees indoors, the question is really how do you get the tree to go through all the normal biological cycles that are necessary for a healthy tree? For a temperate deciduous tree, it simply can't be done. I'm experimenting with a couple of maple seedlings and saplings, which I grow indoors under bright growlights during the growing season, because I don't have access to a sufficiently bright sunlit outdoor space (and also, conveniently, don't have air conditioning inside). But I do have access to a very sheltered, fairly dark outdoor space, which is where they spend the winters, after some time in that less-sunlit outdoor space in the fall. Because you cannot get a temperate deciduous tree into dormancy with indoor temperatures, unless you make your home unlivable for humans. I'm still not sure this will work long-term, and I'm hoping I won't live in a space without outdoor space long-term. ANd it certainly wouldn't work for conifers, which also need to photosynthesize during their dormant period. Tropicals have different requirements. I have a Ficus benjamina that is indoors under growlights year-round, but I vary the photoperiod throughout the year, along with the watering and feeding schedule (and the humidity, which varies naturally due to my lack of AC), because all plants evolved a biological rhythm to go with the seasons, and replicating the environmental triggers for that biorhythm is a requirement for plant health. If someone has an indoor space and setup with which they can trigger the required biorhythms for the right durations for a particular species, then it'll probably work (even if the tree would be more robust outside). If not, the tree will suffer.

Well, I'll just say first that my path to higher physics was cut short so not only am I not even close to being an expert, but I'm jealous of anyone who is... lol

Anyway, I know the color shift isn't really responsible for the hormone changes in the plant, I think the shorter days are what cue the changes for winter.

Most of what I learned about indoor horticulture was by way of growing pot. Before I started, I read a great book on it by a very respected grower... and he led me to believe that the color shift in the atmosphere was enough to validate using different wavelengths.

 

[NMbonsai]

Thanks @bonsainut for starting this thread. It has generated a great discussion. One thing that has not been mentioned yet, is that under inside growing conditions, no matter how controlled, the potential for a pest infestation in a closed environment is greatly increased. A case in point: a bonsai enthusiast I know who lives in New England, works almost exclusively with indoor bonsai, mostly tropicals and mostly ficus. He has invested in the lighting and climate controls to get his plants through the winter and then moves them outside for the summer. Every year, when he moves them back inside, he is beset by a major spider mite infestation. He sprays the trees beforehand, but a month or two later the mites appear. He then has to start spraying again. He has lost some beautifully developed trees over the years as well as a lot of starter material. He has now 'gone nuclear', using some kind of powerful systemic developed for pot growers. I cautioned him against breathing this stuff in a closed environment (he can't open the windows in the middle of winter), but he says it's the only thing he has found that works, so far.

 

[NMbonsai]

Thanks @bonsainut for starting this thread. It has generated a great discussion. One thing that has not been mentioned yet, is that under inside growing conditions, no matter how controlled, the potential for a pest infestation in a closed environment is greatly increased. A case in point: a bonsai enthusiast I know who lives in New England, works almost exclusively with indoor bonsai, mostly tropicals and mostly ficus. He has invested in the lighting and climate controls to get his plants through the winter and then moves them outside for the summer. Every year, when he moves them back inside, he is beset by a major spider mite infestation. He sprays the trees beforehand, but a month or two later the mites appear. He then has to start spraying again. He has lost some beautifully developed trees over the years as well as a lot of starter material. He has now 'gone nuclear', using some kind of powerful systemic developed for pot growers. I cautioned him against breathing this stuff in a closed environment (he can't open the windows in the middle of winter), but he says it's the only thing he has found that works, so far.

When I posted my last reply, I didn't realize that I had not read all of the previous posts on this thread. That is why I said that indoor insect infestation had not been mentioned. Sorry for any confusion on that topic.

 

[Pony Cannon]

Here is my take on the indoor/outdoor bonsai thing

Bonsai are plants.

Did you know there are no indoor plants.

All plants grow outside, they have developed / evolved / been designed, to grow outside, and even the concept of outside makes no sense, there are no outside plants, there are just plants, inside is an invention of monkeys, to stop them getting wet, because they don't like rain, but plants like rain, so plants never invented indoors, so there are no indoor plants, bonsai are plants, therefore, there are no indoor bonsai.

It is possible, however, to grow plants indoors, with varying degrees of success. This may be because the outdoors that the plants grow in can be quite similar to indoors. Or it might be because you can make the indoors to be a lot like the outdoors that a plant grows in.

If you want to grow a bonsai indoors, first you should ask, can I grow any plants indoors?

Different parts of your house have different micro climates, and these can change throughout a year, a south facing (northern hemisphere) window sill in winter is completely different environment to the same place in summer. In winter your plant may struggle to get enough light, in summer it might get so hot that its cells denature (if a plant gets too hot e.g. over ~40C, ~104F the proteins break down and the plant cells can no longer function), a warm bathroom can be a great place to grow orchids, but open a bathroom window in winter and it can change from a humid 17C to a frosty 0C, and your lovely moth orchid drops all its flowers...

Plants like water, it forms the fluid which transports the nutrients and sugars around the plant, it is the medium that chemical reactions happen in, it is used in photosynthesis, it is used to support the plant. Indoors does not have rain*, so you need to supply the rain, the frequency, the amount, the application method, tap water, rainwater...

Getting good at growing plants indoors, means understanding the different conditions in your house, and which plants will grow in which areas. It also means knowing how much to water a plant, how much can also change depending on the season, on the heating in the house, on humidity.

If you can grow houseplants, and they thrive, then you could try growing bonsai indoors, because you will likely have enough horticultural knowledge to know how to ensure the tree gets the light, water, temperature, humidity, fertilization etc. that it needs.

Also did you know, as well as there being no indoor plants, there are no pot plants, plants don't grow in pots, they grow in the ground*.

It is possible to grow plants in pots, with varying degrees of success. In a pot a plant can't get its own water, or nutrients, you need to supply them, in a pot they may not be able to support themselves, you may need to supply that support.

You can grow a tree in a pot by ensuring you provide all the things it needs it cannot get. Water, nutrients, support, the right amount of light, the right intensity of light.

Growing a tree in a pot isn't easy.

Growing a tree in a pot, inside, is like next level hard.

Most plants sold are commodity products, they are grown en-mass, they are sold en-mass, beyond the checkout, they don't care if they live or die, a supermarket plant might cost $2.50, and last a week or two. An "indoor bonsai" might cost 10 or 20 times that and last a week or two.

Why people say indoor bonsai's don't exist, is because spending $2.50 monies to kill a plant, is completely different to spending $50 monies to kill a plant, a person's expectations are different, their investment, and commitment are entirely different. And when the $50 bonsai dies they will have a very different reaction to when a $2.50 plant dies. A $50 bonsai is weaksauce, bonsai can cost so much more, if someone spends $2500 on a bonsai and tries to grow it indoors, and it dies... Not only do they lose their money, but they lose a beautiful plant, everything is bad.

Want to grow a bonsai indoors, learn how to grow bonsai outdoors, learn how to grow plants indoors, then apply the knowledge gained.

It is not impossible to grow a bonsai indoors, but there are no indoors plants.

 

[BonsaiPoppie]

I am in zone 5.

I believe, I am in the twilight zone.

 

[Attmos]

The scattering of blue light by the atmosphere is a geometric effect, yes, but the vast majority of scattered blue light still makes it to the surface. Consider the true-colour images of Earth from the DSCOVR instrument on the EPIC spacecraft. Look at the ocean. Water reflects very little light, and the deep ocean is nearly black under direct illumination, so most of the reflected colour you get in these parts of the image is from the atmosphere itself. Even near the Earth's limb, it's actually not that blue. More blue than in the middle of the disk, yes, but there's really not much blue light being scattered back into space. At a 45-degree sun angle, or roughly midday at 45 degrees latitude on March 21, when plants at that latitude are maybe starting to consider budding out (or perhaps starting to flower in warmer parts of that latitude), almost all the blue light does make it to the ground, so there's not much effective difference in light colour throughout the growing season, even if the direct beam is less blue than the indirect scattered light from the atmosphere. To the extent that different kinds of light promote different kinds of growth, I suspect that's more about intensity and time of year than it is colour. Blue light is more energetic than red light, so changing the colour balance of the LED changes the energy intensity of the light. Jelle is right that the reason growlights have red and blue LEDs is not because of atmospheric scattering but because that's the part of the spectrum chlorophyll absorbs. This is also why leaves are green; the leaves are "rejecting" the green part of the spectrum. That's because a light receiver tuned to the steeper parts of the spectrum has optimal efficiency when it comes to not saturating under full light while still harvesting plenty of energy in a dappled setting (i.e. in a forest canopy). So if you're using an LED to grow plants indoors, you can deliver a closer approximation of their energy needs with less power consumption if you just leave out the parts of the spectrum they don't use anyway (or at least, don't use for photosynthesis--many people have noted across horticultural fields that plants are often more robust when they have exposure to UV and other parts of the spectrum they don't use for photosynthesis).

When discussing why trees can or cannot be grown indoors I think it makes sense to think not only about what environmental factors need to be present, but also what lifecycle processes the trees must undergo to be healthy. Humans need a certain amount of sunlight, food containing a certain range of nutrients and a certain amount of calories, a certain amount of water, and ambient temperatures in a particular range, just like trees do. But if you don't let a human sleep for too long, that human invariably dies--because there are certain biological processes that only happen when we sleep, without which we cannot function for long. So for example, a temperature deciduous tree must go through a dormancy period, and it must go through a cool-down period to get to that dormancy period--because they need to start storing and converting nutrients for the spring growth flush. Without going through the dormancy, the tree will still try to do that when it thinks it might be spring, but without that dormant period, it will exhaust itself, just like a person on no sleep. So if people want to keep trees indoors, the question is really how do you get the tree to go through all the normal biological cycles that are necessary for a healthy tree? For a temperate deciduous tree, it simply can't be done. I'm experimenting with a couple of maple seedlings and saplings, which I grow indoors under bright growlights during the growing season, because I don't have access to a sufficiently bright sunlit outdoor space (and also, conveniently, don't have air conditioning inside). But I do have access to a very sheltered, fairly dark outdoor space, which is where they spend the winters, after some time in that less-sunlit outdoor space in the fall. Because you cannot get a temperate deciduous tree into dormancy with indoor temperatures, unless you make your home unlivable for humans. I'm still not sure this will work long-term, and I'm hoping I won't live in a space without outdoor space long-term. ANd it certainly wouldn't work for conifers, which also need to photosynthesize during their dormant period. Tropicals have different requirements. I have a Ficus benjamina that is indoors under growlights year-round, but I vary the photoperiod throughout the year, along with the watering and feeding schedule (and the humidity, which varies naturally due to my lack of AC), because all plants evolved a biological rhythm to go with the seasons, and replicating the environmental triggers for that biorhythm is a requirement for plant health. If someone has an indoor space and setup with which they can trigger the required biorhythms for the right durations for a particular species, then it'll probably work (even if the tree would be more robust outside). If not, the tree will suffer.

Anyway.. I think I was only answering the question of whether having different wavelengths to use was a gimmick. In my opinion, the option is valid and has uses. I appreciated reading your comment though, very informative. Thank you.

 

[Attmos]

Here is my take on the indoor/outdoor bonsai thing

Bonsai are plants.

Did you know there are no indoor plants.

All plants grow outside, they have developed / evolved / been designed, to grow outside, and even the concept of outside makes no sense, there are no outside plants, there are just plants, inside is an invention of monkeys, to stop them getting wet, because they don't like rain, but plants like rain, so plants never invented indoors, so there are no indoor plants, bonsai are plants, therefore, there are no indoor bonsai.

It is possible, however, to grow plants indoors, with varying degrees of success. This may be because the outdoors that the plants grow in can be quite similar to indoors. Or it might be because you can make the indoors to be a lot like the outdoors that a plant grows in.

If you want to grow a bonsai indoors, first you should ask, can I grow any plants indoors?

Different parts of your house have different micro climates, and these can change throughout a year, a south facing (northern hemisphere) window sill in winter is completely different environment to the same place in summer. In winter your plant may struggle to get enough light, in summer it might get so hot that its cells denature (if a plant gets too hot e.g. over ~40C, ~104F the proteins break down and the plant cells can no longer function), a warm bathroom can be a great place to grow orchids, but open a bathroom window in winter and it can change from a humid 17C to a frosty 0C, and your lovely moth orchid drops all its flowers...

Plants like water, it forms the fluid which transports the nutrients and sugars around the plant, it is the medium that chemical reactions happen in, it is used in photosynthesis, it is used to support the plant. Indoors does not have rain*, so you need to supply the rain, the frequency, the amount, the application method, tap water, rainwater...

Getting good at growing plants indoors, means understanding the different conditions in your house, and which plants will grow in which areas. It also means knowing how much to water a plant, how much can also change depending on the season, on the heating in the house, on humidity.

If you can grow houseplants, and they thrive, then you could try growing bonsai indoors, because you will likely have enough horticultural knowledge to know how to ensure the tree gets the light, water, temperature, humidity, fertilization etc. that it needs.

Also did you know, as well as there being no indoor plants, there are no pot plants, plants don't grow in pots, they grow in the ground*.

It is possible to grow plants in pots, with varying degrees of success. In a pot a plant can't get its own water, or nutrients, you need to supply them, in a pot they may not be able to support themselves, you may need to supply that support.

You can grow a tree in a pot by ensuring you provide all the things it needs it cannot get. Water, nutrients, support, the right amount of light, the right intensity of light.

Growing a tree in a pot isn't easy.

Growing a tree in a pot, inside, is like next level hard.

Most plants sold are commodity products, they are grown en-mass, they are sold en-mass, beyond the checkout, they don't care if they live or die, a supermarket plant might cost $2.50, and last a week or two. An "indoor bonsai" might cost 10 or 20 times that and last a week or two.

Why people say indoor bonsai's don't exist, is because spending $2.50 monies to kill a plant, is completely different to spending $50 monies to kill a plant, a person's expectations are different, their investment, and commitment are entirely different. And when the $50 bonsai dies they will have a very different reaction to when a $2.50 plant dies. A $50 bonsai is weaksauce, bonsai can cost so much more, if someone spends $2500 on a bonsai and tries to grow it indoors, and it dies... Not only do they lose their money, but they lose a beautiful plant, everything is bad.

Want to grow a bonsai indoors, learn how to grow bonsai outdoors, learn how to grow plants indoors, then apply the knowledge gained.

It is not impossible to grow a bonsai indoors, but there are no indoors plants.

Trees don't grow in tiny pots either, but here we are....

 

[Attmos]

When I posted my last reply, I didn't realize that I had not read all of the previous posts on this thread. That is why I said that indoor insect infestation had not been mentioned. Sorry for any confusion on that topic.

Shame about your friend's trees though.