The Best Bonsai Trees For Indoors

With few exceptions, bonsai trees were made to be outdoors.

They ARE trees, after all.

With that said, there are plenty of bonsai trees that will survive, even thrive, in an indoor environment for a majority of the year — with the exception that it takes a summer “vacation” outdoors.

If you’re looking for a bonsai tree for your office, condo, or apartment, a multi-month trip outside probably won’t work for you.

So that means you’d need a bonsai tree that can truly thrive indoors, with a fixed humidity level, and temperature range, and lower levels of light, all year long.

To place your indoor bonsai tree, the first thing to consider is light.

Will it get enough light all year long?  A southern facing window would be best (or, north facing for all of our southern hemisphere readers) with an eastern or western facing window being second best.

If you don’t have enough light, one way to get around this is to use an artificial lighting setup.  This will help your indoor bonsai tree get enough light all year long, and it can even help display it on your desktop.

The next thing to consider is temperature.

As long as you’re not placing your indoor tree in a place with wild temperature swings, like by an open door or heating vent that goes off for the weekends, it will probably do just fine.

Providing you choose a bonsai tree that will survive being indoors all year, that is.

This leaves us with two choices:

The Hawaiian Umbrella Bonsai Tree

When you think of indoor bonsai tree, a Hawaiian Umbrella is the first tree that should come to mind.

It’s great indoors, in a variety of lighting and temperature situations.

Plus, it looks seriously tropical.  It can grow air roots like a classic banyan bonsai tree, and it has a beautiful green canopy that looks like most jungles or rain forests in the world.

One or two of these on your desk can turn a winter working at a computer into a tropical getaway every time you give yourself 5 minutes to daydream.

They’re pretty easy to care for, and can thrive in any indoor environment.

The Baby Jade Bonsai Tree

This is one of my favorite bonsai trees, period.

To start, it looks really exotic in my New York nursery.  In a place filled with hardwood trees, having a water-based bonsai tree like a baby jade is pretty unique, and seriously cool.

It’s remarkably simple to keep alive all year, and it actually stores water remarkably well.

This means I can travel over the winter without worrying too much about how my tree is going to get watered!

This makes it an ideal plant for most offices, since random sick days, vacation days and 3 day weekends can make some trees too thirsty to live.

If you’re on the lookout for a bonsai tree for your office, a baby jade bonsai is your best choice.

(That means they make GREAT corporate gifts.)

Whichever indoor bonsai tree you choose, it will undoubtably bring some extra relaxation and joy into your life.