Many Ways To Display Your Indoor Bonsai
Bonsai is an art form, albeit it uses elements we don't normally associate with art. Instead of using canvas, frames and paints, bonsai uses bits of nature - the bonsai tree, soil, water and rocks. Indoor bonsai is even more special, as this living sculpture is living inside with you as a perpetual connection to Mother Nature. The art of bonsai is not all about the tree. It is also about how that tree is displayed.
Mirror To Nature
Many people approach the art of indoor bonsai as trying to make a miniature mirror of what you may find in nature. They may decide to make a whole tray that mimics a landscape in real life - or a landscape that SHOULD be in real life. Not only do you get to exercise your creativity muscles, but perhaps you get to have a better appreciation for the earth and all creatures in it.
Displays of indoor bonsai that look like miniatures of the normal sized world include a tray half filled with water to mimic a river or lakeside. Pebbles become rocks. Moss becomes bushes. Little figurines of animals or people often feature in these indoor bonsai displays. You can find these little figures in model railroad stores.
Anything Goes
Some people like to be different in everything they do - including how they display their indoor bonsai. If you surf through private web pages of amateur bonsai hobbyists, you'll see displays which don't even treat the tree as a tree. This writer has seen an indoor bonsai display stand in the shape of a skateboard, which the bonsai tree - its branches held out like arms - skated along. It even wore a little bandanna and sneakers.
Perhaps you would like your bonsai to inhabit a miniature alien world. You could put it in a tray filled with soil that mimics lunar craters. You could shape your indoor bonsai tree so that it is bending down in a very un-tree like posture. In bonsai, you really can do nearly everything you can imagine.
Traditional Displays
One of the best things about the art of indoor bonsai is that the beauty does not depend on the presentation - although it can help. The tree itself is a thing of great beauty. It is like a diamond - another thing of great beauty. When set in a band of precious metal, it becomes even more valuable. But it is your bonsai, and you are free to display it however you want to.
