The plants don't quite look like 'bonsai,' do they? A tad bit large, wouldn't you say?
This is because they were all recently purchased from 6" to 10" pots from Lowes and Home Depot.
Top shelf is a variegated form; bottom shelf is the regular green form. All were cut-back severely, root-pruned, and re-potted into 4" terra cotta pots using a mix of pea gravel, perlite, vermiculite, and Miracle Gro 'Cactus, Citrus, & Palm' mix. The plan is to get them growing (i.e. to recover from their recent re-potting/pruning) and develop a strong root system so that I can then cut back severely once more prior to getting into the more refined training. I probably won't bother potting in 8" x 2" bonsai trays until training has been well underway for some time...
As you can see, I've incorporated indoor lighting into this project.
Each of the two plant shelves has a 36" dual-tube fluorescent fixture (each contains one 30 Watt mid-spectrum---6,500K tube and one 25 Watt 'purplish' tube---which I'm guessing is more along the lines of 10,000K?). I used to use these over fish tanks for aquatic plants.
The photos don't do justice to the lighting...
In person it appears much brighter, and I think a lot of it has to do with the camera's ability (inability?) to adjust to the ample lighting coming in from the nearby patio door and adjacent window.
Okay, so this is my start thus far...
This is my very first experience in getting into indoor bonsai, and I've still got a LOT to learn. Comments/questions welcome and much appreciated!
BV
