Inside Bonsai Development

What is Inside Bonsai Development?

This page is dedicated to relaying all the information I've come across in the process of raising bonsai trees inside my condo.












'Indoor Bonsai' is a term trademarked by the Fuku Bonsai nursery in Hawaii. David Fukumoto has been developing suitable indoor bonsai plants for thirty years. It is through his plants that I initially became interested in growing bonsai indoors, and it is through him and his website that I found most of the information that has allowed my plants to prosper. I can not recommend David or his website enough.

Why bonsai inside?

Indoor bonsai are a very good fit for urban dwellers in the midwest. The first consideration is size. If you have 900-1500 square feet of living space, growing fruit trees really is not an option. You need something small, and you need something that can live indoors. You also want something that will grow with you, hopefully throughout your entire life!

There are not that many suitable bonsai species that can easily tolerate being indoors seven to eight months of the year. If you do not have a yard, rootftop or balcony you need a plant that will thrive indoors year round!

Every year some well intentioned individual gives me one of those bonsai packages you pick up at the mall. This is usually a Juniper tree. I have not been able to save a single one! Under those glued-on rocks is inevitably one sick tree. I wonder if they are not actually dead when I receive them. Even if they were healthy, you can not raise these trees inside a condo. They must live outdoors.

Without a huge investment of time and care it is probable that you can pass a bonsai to your prodigy. All of my bonsai are relatively young. I have been caring for the oldest since I brought it back from my honeymoon four years ago. Each year it gets larger and more interesting. It is absolutely amazing to witness these plants, both as a work in progress and as a finished result.

Finally, and this is the real point of bonsai, you are developing a piece of living art. The bonsai is what you make of it. There is the horticulture aspect of growing a healthy plant, then there is the artistic aspect of developing a design and achieving the design through a long iterative process of grooming and training. This is what differentiates a bonsai enthusiast from the backyard gardener. It is also why a beautiful bonsai at maturity can cost well over ten thousand dollars.
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For 4 long years I have been working on bonsai indoors.

Unfortunately for the plants, I live in Chicago.

Born on the big island of Hawaii, my plants were not initially happy with the extreme cold, then heat of Chicago, to say nothing of the five month period from November to March that is usually completely overcast. This blog will document everything I've learned, mostly through failure, and will hopefully be helpful to others.
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