I think it would work for a Juniper. The thing to remember with Juniper is they do go dormant and need that dormancy to survive. That means it needs cool when it's supposed to be cool. Basically whatever the normal tree would need is what your Bonsai needs, with the exception of the frequency of water. I think I will have to get one too!

They're really not much good except for house plants. The link you gave unfortunately does not have the best rep for anything (but making money), and ALL plants belong outdoors except that tropicals will tolerate living indoors if you give them proper conditions. Junipers will not last long inside, whatever you do.

tanyag, Thanks you were the first person that actually said it might actually work, but does anyone know how to make a fisherman sceen in there bonsai pot.

Be careful here with that one. Many to most of the people here would scoff at the notion. It seems that this is only something done by commercialized Bonsai to make it look authentic. ??? I don't know. I am relatively new at this. I think they're cute, but many believe that it takes away from the asthetics of the tree itself. Just as the pot shouldn't compete with the tree, I guess nothing else should either. I don't know why anyone would say that it wouldn't work. 1200 lumens is pretty good and with that telescoping arm, you should be able to get it close to the plant. The humidity tray will be good too! All you can do is try. From a previous thread, I know you were given a juniper. I have one too that I am trying to keep indoors. If it fails, I learn a lesson, and they don't cost a fortune to replace if they die the way lucy said they would in your previous thread. I have all my cactus and succulents and Bonsai indoors, but close to an East facing window. All we can do is wait and see.

"Close to an East facing window" will not grow any of the plants you mention, even in Houston. They may not succumb immediately, but won't go anywhere positive either. Most indoor bonsai are kept under 30-40,000 watt very high lumen light - 6" under the long fluorescent tubes which are most effective at their middles. Keeping something 'alive' is not the ideal goal of growers. Experts with optimum conditions and years of experience and education from all over the world agree that junipers won't grow meaningfully inside, but hey, maybe you have a secret?

A juniper needs humidity, alot of light (full spectrum), correct watering. If you are going to attempt to grow this indoor, I would guess it will work for a year or two, then the strees will knock it dead. Go with a ficus or even a small citrus if you are going to grow indoor.
Im guessing since yoru in Texas you have AC running almost year long. Your Juniper will dry out realy fast.

As for the fisherman pond. They sell pots that have a devider in them. One side you plant your tree, the other you fill with water and make it look like a pond. Since your growing indoor, this would aid in raising the humidity.
http://www.lucky-bamboo.com/bonsaipot_sale.htm
Check out the pot at the bottom of this page.
Find a local bonsai store and they should have a varity of them to choose from.
Good luck.

Lucy I'm not sure were you got 40,000 watts from but its sounds more like the color temperature 4000K which is asortof a yellowish color, HPS bulbs produce light in that range and it is generally considered good for bloom and fruit production but 6300-6700K is what sunlight is at and most plants grow foliage best under these lights IME. While it is true that you must keep your plants very close under the growlights you get at a hardwere store it must be taken into account that those lights are designed for normal output (NO) fixtures and that t-8 (1 inch thick) and t-12 (1.5")Very High Output (VHO) and t-5 (5/8") High Output (HO) fixtures can be obtained in specialty stores and Via the internet, Compact Flourescent is also a very good option. The Aquarium Hoby in Germany (there national Hoby, the US is stamp collecting) has pushed the lighting industry in very much the same way that the computer gaming industry has pushed the computer hardware industry. While this product is infact not worht the money there are indoor lighting options that can keep the most light demandinf orgainisms that we can keep alive in the US happy, With the proper lighting we can keep animals that live only in the first few feet of water on tropical island with no shade alive, the trees we can grow outside in the US do not need nearly that intensity of light, Just this persons unpaid for opinion though.

Brendan

Brendan - it's a purpose built 'Indoor Greenhouse' - anything but something from the hardware, and I've used it for years.

You will have to excuse me Lucy, I wasn't even aware that you had an indoor green house, although I'm not sure exactly how that has bearing on my argument, perhaps you could humor me and expound upon your reply.

Thanks

Brendan

I do not have a indoor green house I have this

http://www.bonsaiboy.com/catalog/product203.html

and I think its doing ok beacouse its keep my juniper on it alive and well for about 3 weeks now, but I am going to put my juniper out side, but I am going to get a fukon tea tree to grow indoors on the light. I am also trying to find a texas ebony to grow out side too, but I am having a hard time finding one of them.

Thanks for all of yalls great comments they have helped me a lot in starting my long journey in raising bonsais beacouse when I came to this web site I didn't really know anything then I got a indoor bonsai book and yall have really tought me a lot thanks everybody.

Hi Brendan, about 10 yrs ago I was at a big garden ctre and saw them using a Klima-Gro (as in www.Klimagro.com) to grow stuff. They said they were selling theirs to change their display area and I got it really, really cheap (so don't go by the website prices!) as a couple of the features didn't work and it wasn't new. The lighting still worked tho', and I didn't need the temp controls or humidity, and this year I got another one with the controls plus a tiny built-in fan they threw in! I've since had the lites of the orig. ('Majestic' model) lowered a foot (and raised things up on stands) because while it maintains things, it wasn't good enough to elicit some orchids to flower, but my broms, tills, ficuses, kumquat, and bunch of other things are happy and I've had a few other things in there - a tree stump with orchids on it, a beta in a 10 gal. tank with a peace lily (soil-free), a tiny butterfly that we found lost in Jan. when it got so warm (crazy, really!), and various rocks. Don't think I'll go for frogs anytime soon, but I've thought about it :-). BTW, did you know there was a very famous playright with your name (Brendan Behan, since departed due to drink!)?

Oh - the new one is the 'Legend' (if you check them out).

JBonsai, I'm not sure if you've been listening to anyone, for instance
bill_ftmyers_fl Said:
If you are going to attempt to grow this indoor, I would guess it will work for a year or two, then the strees will knock it dead.
and lucy Said: They may not succumb immediately, but won't go anywhere positive either.

Which means yout three weeks of non death has no bearing on the arguments made for keeping your plant outside in full sun. You do not realise it, but 9 watts of flurescent is not much at all, I used to have 48 watts of compact flourescent on my fish tank, it did alright and I thought it was pretty good, untill I upgraded to 150 watts, and realised that the 48 Watt system was very dim, and if I compair the 150 Watts to say sunlight streaming in though an east facing window in the morning I can see that I'm still not at sunlight intensity, your little light it about 1/16th of what I had on my fishtank, which was atmost 1/2 of the intensity of early morning sun, and to be honest, the telescoping arm really does not do that much to help you, it cuts down on the amount of light flying past the plant, but the air between the light and the plant doesn't stop that much light 18 watts at 20" is a whole lot better than 9 Watts at 6"

Now on to Lucy!

That system is sweet, I want one, but I'm too poor/cheap/homeless college studentish to get one, however, I don't think its really that light intensive a system, it looks like there are only two tubes, and the fact that they didn't mention a wattage or t-# tells me that the tubes are probably not that special. For instance the Majestic looks to have a peaked top, maybe it has four tubes because it is rather wide, in say a good reef aquarium there would be atleast 20 t-5 tubes in that 26" width and as many as 26 if they were really pushing it and connecting all the reflectors in craft ways, thats the difference between 160 Watts and 1080-1404 Watts, Plus reflectors work better on the t-5s and they produce less heat too,of course this much light would blind you for a few hours if you were to look directly at it from say 4 feet away, but it would be wickedly awesome!

Brendan - Look at this from a GE website (URL too long to paste). New K-G's (like mine) now come with two F8 30-40w (? lumens - I forget #) fluors (rather than the biax 'U') instead, but give even better results.

Plug-in 4-Pin High Lumen Biax® Item Detail
Basic LSB Images
Subcategory Plug-in 4-Pin High Lumen Biax®
Product Code 16648
Description F40/30BX/SPX35
Watts 40
Average Rated Life 20000
Lumens (Initial) 3150
Lumens (Mean) 2840
Color Temperature (K) 3500
Color Rendering Index (Ra) CRI 82
Bulb Type BiaxL (T5)
Base Type 2G11
Nominal Length (In.) 22.5
Nominal Length (mm) 572
Sales Unit UPC 043168166485
Case UPC 043168166485
SCC 10043168166482
Govt. Nat'l Stock Number 6240013537704
Case Quantity 40
Additional Information NEMA Generic Designation: FT40W/2G11/RS/835
Footnotes Fluorescent lamp lumens decline during life.Based on 60Hz reference circuit.4-Pin lamp minimum starting temperature is a function of the ballast. Most ballasts are rated with a minimum starting temperature of 50° F (10° C). Ballasts are also available that provide reliable starting to 0° F (-18° C) and -20° F (-29° C).Life ratings based on rapid start operation. On instant start ballast, life rating is 25% lower.

Lumens are a function of the color temperature as well as the amount of energy that you put into the production of light (ie watts not going to heat) I'm really amazed that they can get 40 Watts going through a 22.5 inch tube and not have it blow up, I'm going to have to look these puppies up, BTW, how many of these do you have in there?

I only have one of the grow lights, so I can keep it on my desk.

So it seems like its comming down to a couple facts/choices here. Lucy has the expierence to know that there arn't any examples of long lived indoor junipers that can be cited. Some think its worth the expiriment "Just in case" it could work, which would be cool, if it did work, and you can never say never. Anything is remotely posible. However, I keep thinking that if you knew you would spend lots of time,intrest and affection on something that was statisticly doomed, it would be a pretty big investment for not much return. Then there is the part of bonsai where folks love OLD OLD specimins. This would probably not be likly to happen with an indoor juniper.As well there is the point about alive vs quality of life. This is relavant. Its hard to think you would buy somthing knowing you were giving it a death sentence. On the other hand, if some one gives you a gift, you want to do your best by it. SO.... gifts aside,if you know its got to stay indoors, I would want to think about what it is about a juniper thats so aluring and see if there isnt some other type of plant that could nearly aproximate that. You couldnt say "well instead of a juniper, you could get a cottoniaster" they have nothing in common, so it wouldnt give you what your wanted, but is there any other tree that is some what like a juniper that can stay indoors,? cyprus?yew? hemlock? I dont know if they are all ourdoor or not, but if I was really into this look, Id research what the next best thing would be that would live a really long time indoors, and avoid the broken hart of plant death. but thats just me, and I also know that miricles hppen. Im just not as likely to spend years on such a chancy out come. Surely some one out there has seen something that would fit the bill? What is it about junipers that people like any way??

There are 4 biax bulbs in the Maj. (two nose to nose, parallel to 2 others). As far as the 'indoor' juniper thing goes, it's not even about me or my experience, but decades and more of people all over the world trying it and failing, people with tons of experience, terrifically ideal set-ups, lots of education, etc. etc. Of course, there are a few who've succeeded in keeping some alive under particular conditions for 2-3 years even, but so what, in the end the trees are exhausted by lack of dormancy and give up anyhow, and unless a tree is native to conditions we try to keep them in, which may be pretty good, but still not really even close to nature, it's going to eventually die, or at least be so pathetic as to make you wonder why anyone would bother. Junipers are pretty classic subjects because they've been used in Japan so extensively (and here where they grow and look interesting in the SW deserts, etc.), never mind the Karate Kid movie that got so many people into bonsai, and they look so neat naturally, but while desert conditions may seem 'hot enough' for northerners to think they can be kept inside, all that means is that they experience high temps in the daytime, but believe it or not the humidity in most deserts is still better than our dull musty dusty living rooms and nights get really cold there. And that doesn't even address fresh air, really good drainage (the whole planet if you think about it :-)! or micronutrients in rainwater, etc. Don't you think I'd love to be able to keep them inside if there were any possible way?

I guess by the sound of it every one would, :) I am not as excited by them, but when some one figures out either a way, or a good substitute,lots of folks will be thrilled!!!! Since they are pretty hardy, if any one had only a window ledge, would one ever be able to survive some how on the OUTSIDE of the window? like on the ledge? when I was in london, it seemed so impressive how folks with no garden had these great window boxes, every one there seems to keep some bit of something growing any way they can. some of these planters are pretty impressive, with tiny perenials mixed in. I dont know if it would be too extreme, but it would be out side. This is sort of funny to me because in the neighbor hood where I live lots of them got planted in little hedge rows years ago, Now they are the plantzillas of the neighborhood. Nothing kills one that is growing out side in the northwest. (except extreme drought in the first year or two. They are almost creepy. Just some thoughts.

Well Lucy, I looked it up and it is VHO, however, there are only four 22.5 in tubes, so that little bit of math still holds true, still 160 W against a possible 1404 W Also keep in mind that while it would apear that the average rated life on those tubes is 4.6 years (seems way to long) there spectrum will be shot by about 6 months, is perhaps spectrum playing a role in your Orchid blooming adventures?

And Jbonsai, I'm not entirely sure that you read my last post in its entirety, it was about Lucys indoor green house, more on the track of "is it possible to light things well inside" rather than the "will this product work" line, because its pretty well descided that that grow light will not work for anything but low light plants From what I have seen anyways.

Brendan, you're right about the 6 mos (tho' I leave mine in longer $$-wise) and I do rotate plants to and from the sills. Have you looked at the lighting forum here (GW) - there's an awful lot of interesting stuff on it, just for your info. if nothing else.