Sitka Spruce - a project

[divergent_little_tree]

New here and wanted to start with my newest project; for background (briefly) I've loved the art for more than 30 years and had at one time a lovely collection, a house fire managed to kill off the majority of my trees and theft of my surviving spruce forest killed my desire to invest any more emotion into new trees. 15 years has past and my passion for the art has been reignited and I've built up a little group of mostly conifers (spruce, mugo and white pine) and a couple of deciduous (cherry & pacific crab apple) for some spring colour.

I live in Vancouver, BC the land of coffee snobs, weed dispensaries and plant nurseries virtually on every corner. I went to a wonderful new place yesterday, Cedar Rim Nursery (if you venture out there you will not be disappointed) just to look around and see what they had to offer. A 10 acre shop is NOT what I expected and a quick look around was not in the cards. I wandered for a good two hours and as I was making my way out, on one of the last rows I decided to check I found a small clutch of sitka spruce. Living in the Pacific Northwest you see these beautiful, massive trees on your drives along the coast and just marvel at the majesty. There were maybe 6 or 7, 1G pots with these young healthy looking trees and 1 pot with the tree you see in the photos.

I was immediately drawn away from the the small, healthy saplings to this little one that seems to be refusing to give up .. I felt an immediate kinship with this tree and made it a silent promise that I will create a beautiful piece of living art with it. Having just come out of more than 2 years of treatment for leukemia, well, let's just say that the tree and I share something on an emotional level.

My initial thoughts/plan is to merge the literati & root-over-rock styles in a shallow handmade clam shell pot. Obviously, this final planting is years away. This weekend I will only transfer the sapling into a 12x12x7" (deep) cedar planter, combine 50% of the soil from the nursery with a homebrew mix of fine peat, cedar & fir bark, pumice, acadama, bone meal, glacier dust (calcium, magnesium, iron) and mycorhizal pellets. I'll select a nice piece of dragon stone, some freshly harvested moss and wrap the root ball loosely with some raffia and anchor the new project in place. I'll post some photos of the stages as I go along. I won't be trimming, removing empty branches, root pruning, wiring or anything but repotting for this year. I want to give this little tree the opportunity to thrive in its' new home and tell me what it wants to become in time.

Anyone with insight to Sitka Spruce, root-over-rock or literati style experience ... care and scheduling of sitka spruce (trimming, wiring, rammification, flushing etc) experience .. Please do not hesitate to post, critique, add to the discussion; any advice will be a great help. I'm rather happy with advice and overjoyed to be a new member here.

 

[PonderingSage:]

I love sitka spruce. When hiking on the Oregon coast it seems like every othe one is growing on nurse logs or old logging stumps in various states of decay. Your plan seems on theme.
Good luck with the project!

 

[PowerTap]

I have a Sitka spruce that I'm thickening up in a pond basket. I've been following general spruce care guidance.

• They like to stay a little more wet than dry as the roots
• I cut back new growth by half to two thirds in the late spring. I could probably let it grow out more vigorously, but I'm trying to keep the lower branches fairly compact for a future Shohin.
• Do some needle plucking in the fall to encourage back budding.
• I'm letting the leader grow out on mine to thicken the trunk.

 

[divergent_little_tree]

@PowerTap I have a small leader at the base with a couple of fresh buds I will leave on for a couple of years for the same reason, but was really happy to see two equal trunks growing from about 1/3 the way up the main trunk. So the plan is after a year or so in the cedar planter, I'll do a root redux on the tree and move it to a deeper pond basket like you have. The only deep ones I can find are pretty wide as well, so the transplanting plan is to make a square cardboard barrier about 2/3 the LxW of the pond basket, the fill the outer with tiny leca balls and the the main root ball with my soil mix. I'll pull the cardboard out and hope it creates an inch or so gap all around to focus the root energy into the middle "over-rock" growth.

If I'm successful with that, I'll eventually be able to place the tree into a pot like in the photo and plant moss all around it to look like a Sitka gripping onto a cliff shard overlooking a beautiful valley .... that's the vision anyway I'm taking some pottery classes in the next couple of years with a Japanese teacher here and will start making my own pots and Kintsuji.

 

[divergent_little_tree]

I love sitka spruce. When hiking on the Oregon coast it seems like every othe one is growing on nurse logs or old logging stumps in various states of decay. Your plan seems on theme.
Good luck with the project!

Once I am finished with my return to school and back to work, I'm taking my spouse on a trip to OR and WA, I mean we're basically neighbours anyway. I'm very tempted to return to the nursery next year for another sitka baby to begin a raft-style planting because I love the the look of the smaller, stout trees growing off the nursing logs too. There is something dramatic about a large trunk jin sticking out into the air with a beautiful tree growing from it. Circle of life and all that.

Thank you for that image for a future project.

 

[Cruiser]

Hi divergent_little_tree.

I do not mean to detract from your excitement, but it appears that the nursery mislabeled your tree. What you have there is a Douglas-fir, not spruce.
The blistered grey bark, angular pointed buds, soft-tipped needles, leggy branches, and sparsely needled lower trunk are all indicators. Compare it closely to PowerTap’s example.

This doesn’t mean you can’t ROR or enjoy it just as much, it just needs to be cared for differently.

 

[0soyoung]

I do not mean to detract from your excitement, but it appears that the nursery mislabeled your tree. What you have there is a Douglas-fir, not spruce.
The blistered grey bark, angular pointed buds, soft-tipped needles, leggy branches, and sparsely needled lower trunk are all indicators.

Those "pointy/pointed" buds are also a characteristic of Douglas fir (a definitive one in "my book").

 

[PowerTap]

Easy test, Doug Fir has flat needles, Sitka have rounder ones that you can roll between your fingers.

Looking more closely at your photos, those look like pretty flat needles.

 

[divergent_little_tree]

I will take a very close look at it, either way, I’ll do a deep dive into both species and see best ways to take care of each.
It was a very bare tree compared to its’ companions but very well may have been mislabeled.

 

[PowerTap]

Regardless of what species the first goal should be to get the tree healthy and growing vigorously.

 

[divergent_little_tree]

Regardless of what species the first goal should be to get the tree healthy and growing vigorously.

Exactly my thoughts. I'm starting its' new home today. I found a beautiful stone that will be the roots' base. I just need to tap a proper drainage hole into the cedar planter and drill some wire anchor holes. Next step is to mix up and charge the fresh soil. By this weekend everything will be ready for the move.

 

[divergent_little_tree]

Regardless of what species the first goal should be to get the tree healthy and growing vigorously.

Very nice collection there