Show Off Your Balcony Setup

[cedarcanvas]

As the title suggests, I’d love to see what those confined to balconies are doing for their bonsai setups.

I’m new to bonsai and live in a condo so am limited to balcony gardening. Fortunately, I’m south-facing and get tons of sun. I’m curious to see what people do to address challenges like bench builds and placement, wind, drainage, light, storage, etc., special to confined gardens. I’ll share a picture when I’m set up.

 

[cedarcanvas]

My initial jury-rigged watering setup:



The milk crate allows the water to drain into the basin, rather than having the bottom of the pot sit directly in the standing water and fail to drain. The basin stops the overflow from draining onto the balconies below which would make me a shitty neighbour. It’s a bit precarious, but once it’s done draining, I move it back to the floor. Unless I can think of another solution, I intend on getting a bus bin-type basin in which the milk crate can sit flat, rather than balanced on the round basin which is all I had in stock...all this is tough with shopping options currently very limited.

 

[AZbonsai]

Nice set up! How about putting a couple of bricks in the basin and set your tree on that?

 

[cedarcanvas]

Nice set up! How about putting a couple of bricks in the basin and set your tree on that?

Thanks! I like the brick idea too. Or perhaps a cinder block. Certainly wouldn’t be as top heavy. Not sure it would be any easier to come across a cinder block or bricks right now where I’m at haha. The milk crate does elevate it so I can better enjoy it through my window...hmmm

 

[AZbonsai]

Set the basin on top of the milk crate.

 

[cedarcanvas]

Set the basin on top of the milk crate.

That was my first thought, but then the pot will be soaking in the water runoff and I don’t want the soil and roots to get soggy.

 

[cedarcanvas]

Oops...Maybe you meant set the tree on the bricks in the basin on top of the milk crate...that could work.

 

[woodkraftbonsai]

Here's my bench that I just built a couple of weeks ago and then as it is on my balcony currently.

Pics 1&2 are at my in-laws cabin where I built it using some extra lumber they had laying around.
Pic 3 is back at my apartment.

 

[AZbonsai]

Not much of a view! Beautiful set up.

 

[baron]

My 12m². Quite happy with it. Only two things I dislike about it... It's on the 4th floor of my house, so when I go on workshops, it quite a hassle...
And the fact that I don't have much room to work on my trees outdoors. Have to move em down do the garage and back up after.



It gets kinda crowded when everything start growing



Will be putting up the shade cloth again soon. (pic from last year)

 

[cedarcanvas]

Wow, what a collection!

Some questions: Is that turf? Do you find it hard to keep clean? How do you deal with drainage?

 

[baron]

Turf? You mean on the floor?
No, that's just an artificial grass carpet thing. Was already there when I bought the place. It feels like a pretty cheap one and was thinking about replacing it at first, but then I got into bonsai (and all of the clutter that comes with trees) and decided to just stick with it. Last fall I started using a small Karcher industrial vacuum cleaner once every few months to clean it Sucks up all the clutter and water.

Underneath are normal layers of concrete, roofing, plastic and who knows what else
As for drainage, theres a rain runoff in the back left corner which I need to clean every once in a while...

 

[AZbonsai]

My 12m². Quite happy with it. Only two things I dislike about it... It's on the 4th floor of my house, so when I go on workshops, it quite a hassle...
And the fact that I don't have much room to work on my trees outdoors. Have to move em down do the garage and back up after.

View attachment 300669

It gets kinda crowded when everything start growing

View attachment 300670View attachment 300672View attachment 300673

Will be putting up the shade cloth again soon. (pic from last year)
View attachment 300671

Nice collection!

 

[cedarcanvas]

Update: Got some bricks and changed up the order of the stack. Functional, if not fancy.

I don’t know how well they will stand up to he UV over the summer, but, for now, the basins are doing their job well. Also, finally frost is behind us here and sunny warm weather is in the forecast. My view just improved!

Thanks for the tips. I’d love to see more balcony setups!

 

[SilverShoe99]

Awesome view of the lake. I love Toronto - lived there for 9 years before moving out to LA, and still go back to visit a few times a year. Or, used to, I guess. I can't believe how light traffic is on the Gardiner.

 

[cedarcanvas]

Awesome view of the lake. I love Toronto - lived there for 9 years before moving out to LA, and still go back to visit a few times a year. Or, used to, I guess. I can't believe how light traffic is on the Gardiner.

A pandemic will do that, I suppose.

 

[Lazylightningny]

Some interesting setups here. I've always wondered what you balcony guys do about runoff from watering. Good to see some creative solutions.

 

[cedarcanvas]

Some interesting setups here. I've always wondered what you balcony guys do about runoff from watering. Good to see some creative solutions.

The winter will be a whole other story. If I can get these (my first trees) to survive this season, I’ll be scrambling to figure something out for the deep freeze...In the meantime, I’m happy to concern myself with sunnier times!

 

[It's Kev]

A’ight, here’s me. It’s north facing, right now I get sun the moment it rises and an hour or 2 before it goes down, later on I’ll only get the really harsh rays at mid day. These are only some, the rest is on the roof garden of a different building

 

[Jkhuu]

I used to live in house with balcony some 20 yrs ago. What I liked about balcony was there was no fear of your trees being stolen or critters digging through the soil at night.