Decorative Flowering Bonsai Trees

Indoor or Outdoor Decorative Flowering Bonsai Trees

Some bonsai trees – like any other tree – flower and produce fruit. A regular apple tree for example produces a lovely apple blossom and later yields a crop of apples. The huge difference however is the size of the tree! A well cared for bonsai tree is an extremely attractive and decorative tree whether it’s kept indoors or outdoors in a highly visible area.

The Flowering Crab-apple or Malus Sargenti is an excellent example of an outdoor bonsai tree. The miniature tree produces a beautiful white apple blossom in the spring, followed by the small crab-apples, and then in the autumn the crab-apples will turn in colour to various shades of red, yellow and orange.

The Flowering Pink Hibiscus or anisodontea scabrosa is an excellent example of an indoor flowering bonsai tree. This bonsai tree originates from South Africa and produces wonderful pink flowers for most of the year.

If you are going to display your bonsai indoors then you can add to the quality of the display in a number of ways. The first and most obvious is to choose a suitable container for your bonsai tree – this will usually be a ceramic pot – frequently decorated with an oriental pattern! Choose whatever you like to see in your home – ensuring that it has suitable drainage holes. You then most likely want to have a drip tray or similar (I used to call them saucer!). This will prevent water draining from the pot onto the standing surface. The drip tray / humidifier should hold a little water at all times. Maintaining humidity around your bonsai tree will provide an excellent bonsai growing environment. Once you have made your choice for pot and drip tray then you may want some sort of stand – which could be anything from a simple wooden stand to a beautiful revolving purpose built stand enabling you to easily and frequently change your bonsai tree’s aspect within the room. Some of the very elaborate displays for indoor bonsai are almost breath-taking. Frequent use of stones and pebbles will provide a simple but attractive display background for your bonsai tree. Some of these displays, however, are a true art form in themselves and represent a miniature mountain and / or river landscape. With your miniature landscape and miniature tree you really have a "Landscape Penjing" meaning "landscape in a tray".

If you are going to display your bonsai outdoors then you have many more options depending on your own ‘outdoor area’. You may have a small balcony to your flat (or apartment), a large timber decking area, a stone (maybe concrete) patio or just a very pleasant garden. Whatever you situation you can be creative using attractive pots. Many bonsai displays involve pebbles or small stones. Again the choice is yours and the ideas are almost limitless for outside bonsai. If you are a real bonsai fanatic then you can easily create an entire bonsai display with several trees of different sizes and characteristics. Another alternative for out-side bonsai display is a purpose built display bench. A display bench could simply consist of 2 or more solid pieces of timber, suitably treated, laid across two small walls or purpose built wooden frame. The idea of the bonsai bench is to enable you to display the trees to their best advantage whilst making life is easy as possible for you - the bonsai carer. With a suitable bench you’ll be able to access the bonsai tree or probably trees easily for watering, pruning etc. without having to continually bend to the tree or move the tree to where is convenient for yourself.