NanoWinder
Seedling
Hi all,
I recently got bitten a bit by the bonsai bug, and decided to join this forum to learn more.
Some background: two weeks ago I was asked by my wife to take better care of my 2 years old Ficus Ginseng "mallsai" from IKEA. When first I got it, it almost died from too much water, and then it was given the Sahara treatment until all but two branches and three root bulbs were completely dry and dead. I then got a nicer ficus from my son last week, that I want to be able to take better care of then my IKEA ficus. Then I got a cheap backup-ginseng-ficus in case the IKEA one dies from too much abuse during my initial learning phase, and also for experiments with soils and styling approaches...
The non-ginseng ficus had been growing unsupervised in the shop for some time, so was a quite bit out of shape, and I tried cutting it into a more "in character" style, and I fear it now looks more like an "Ent" out of Lord of the Rings than like a bonsai (see attached picture). Some of the cuttings were planted in a separate pot in case I will need another ficus bonsai some years in the future.
The IKEA ficus now looks quite tragic (see the other attached picture), and I have a hard time imagining what direction to take it, although I guess first priority should be to let it grow back some branches. I guess it also needs repotting as soon as possible after two years in IKEA-ground.
Since I live in Norway, I am a bit limited in outdoors possibilities and have decided to focus on indoors bonsai for now, although I may consider kidnapping a local tree (e.g. juniper?) for some semi-protected part of the garden later when I know a bit more about how to take care of trees.
Are there any other beginner-friendly indoor bonsai to be recommended apart from ficus?
I recently got bitten a bit by the bonsai bug, and decided to join this forum to learn more.
Some background: two weeks ago I was asked by my wife to take better care of my 2 years old Ficus Ginseng "mallsai" from IKEA. When first I got it, it almost died from too much water, and then it was given the Sahara treatment until all but two branches and three root bulbs were completely dry and dead. I then got a nicer ficus from my son last week, that I want to be able to take better care of then my IKEA ficus. Then I got a cheap backup-ginseng-ficus in case the IKEA one dies from too much abuse during my initial learning phase, and also for experiments with soils and styling approaches...
The non-ginseng ficus had been growing unsupervised in the shop for some time, so was a quite bit out of shape, and I tried cutting it into a more "in character" style, and I fear it now looks more like an "Ent" out of Lord of the Rings than like a bonsai (see attached picture). Some of the cuttings were planted in a separate pot in case I will need another ficus bonsai some years in the future.
The IKEA ficus now looks quite tragic (see the other attached picture), and I have a hard time imagining what direction to take it, although I guess first priority should be to let it grow back some branches. I guess it also needs repotting as soon as possible after two years in IKEA-ground.
Since I live in Norway, I am a bit limited in outdoors possibilities and have decided to focus on indoors bonsai for now, although I may consider kidnapping a local tree (e.g. juniper?) for some semi-protected part of the garden later when I know a bit more about how to take care of trees.
Are there any other beginner-friendly indoor bonsai to be recommended apart from ficus?