Upright spruce. Just a tree

wireme

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heres a black spruce collected about 4 years back. Growing decently well now. I'm predicting that this will be the year it really picks up and back buds hard. As long as I keep it hydrated anyways. It's still in the original muskeg ball. Just moss basically, no matter how much I water these I eventually have to sit them in a bucket to rehydrate at some point, kinda weird.

Chased back the crown a little last night, started pulling branches down with guy wires last year. Will do a better job with that this summer sometime. Deleted a few entire branches here and there last night.

Going for "just a tree" like any maturish spruce in any old forest. No crazy environmental influences to shape it, just your typical basic generic spruce.

I like it, no crazy movement, deadwood, big taper, huge girth.... It does have just some consistent taper, nice bark. Thin and fragile flakes but nice. Enough branches so that I can remove enough to avoid whorl bulging and bar branching. No flaws really, I thinks that's a bit underrated in terms of assessing material quality sometimes. No weird kinks, bulges, nothing to hide..If they show up later it'll be my fault for allowing them to develop. It would be better if it was fatter, more taper, older but it's good enough for me. I hope I can do a good job because I'd like to have a nice example of just a tree around. Nebari is a problem, I should set it up for ground layering soon. There are a few buds close to the trunk on the lower branches now. Not many, I expect a lot more by seasons end. Haven't nailed down the exact spot for new leader transition up top yet, somewhere close to the current height though I think. image.jpg




image.jpg
 

Tycoss

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I really like the idea of "just a tree", a nice, typical example of the natural growth pattern for the species. I'm sure some will say this is not "art" and shows no appreciation for the essence and intent of bonsai, but I think it shows some artistic insight to see the interest in the commonplace as well as the exceptional.
 

Saddler

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I like it! I have been wanting to do something very similar. Ideally a blue spruce with more taper and branches that start almost vertical before barely pointing above horizontal at the tip. In Yukon the natural style of the trees comes from the heavy snow making them very narrow and pointy (but not the taper part haha) with lots of thing branches. I really want something simple and looking like the average spruce, like you have.
 
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Very nice tree. Nature is beautiful. I don't know if ground layering is a good option. Personally i would think NOT.
 

Giga

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A good wiring and clean up and this would look like an alpine style.
 

Djtommy

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I also would hesitate to airlayer, the chance of loosing the tree is probably bigger then the chance the layer would work. Also groundlayering would mean no more foliage that feeds the roots and they likely will not live long enough to have them replaced with new roots from the layer.

Nice tree
 

wireme

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Thanks for the comments!
I'll update occasionally, it'll take a while before substantial progress happens but..
Very nice tree. Nature is beautiful. I don't know if ground layering is a good option. Personally i would think NOT.

Thanks, why do you say that about ground layer?
I like it! I have been wanting to do something very similar. Ideally a blue spruce with more taper and branches that start almost vertical before barely pointing above horizontal at the tip. In Yukon the natural style of the trees comes from the heavy snow making them very narrow and pointy (but not the taper part haha) with lots of thing branches. I really want something simple and looking like the average spruce, like you have.

Thanks your comment reminds me of another goal of mine. Someday I'd like to have the image of a typical subalpine fir in a pot. Another sort of less interesting design I guess but I spend a lot of time in them ( especially skiing in winter) and really like them. Tall, very narrow, pointy cones. Super dense, trunk not even visible, branches right to the ground. Beautiful trees. image.jpgimage.jpgimage.jpg
 

wireme

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I also would hesitate to airlayer, the chance of loosing the tree is probably bigger then the chance the layer would work. Also groundlayering would mean no more foliage that feeds the roots and they likely will not live long enough to have them replaced with new roots from the layer.

Nice tree

Thanks, I'll get back to you after work, I'd like to discuss this more.
 

Velodog2

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Accept it for what it is - a very nice natural tree. Not all trees in nature are spectacular or have great nebari. But they can still be beautiful. The branches might be a little long in proportion and I'm not too sure about the extreme "Marlo Thomas flip" style on the lowest, but spruce and fir have a lot of different appearances in nature and if it works for you it's valid. The quality of the bark alone is enough to make this tree special.
 
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Djtommy

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why you keep it in that shit for 4 years?

I got one in that same shit from last year and I cannot wait to get it out next year.

dope tree, dope plan, man. love it.
I kinda agree with this, better replace with decent soil, it wil produce better roots quicker.
As a side story, in the beginning days of collecting ezo in japan they would bring them down to tokyo are and they used spaghnum moss because that was what they were growing in in nature, 1000s of trees died because of this after several years.
Because climate was different the moss got bad much faster then in the colder climate and the roots started to rot. Upon changing the soil to bonsaisoil they were able to keep them alive.
 

Waltron

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I think I recall reading about that a little bit in Kato's book, also sounds similar to the issues Lentz mentions in his book about newbs collecting bog larch with all the anaerobic dead root slime muck. We had David Degroot as a guest at our club recently and he spoke briefly about his time as an apprentice in Japan and his visits to Kato's place and all the Ezo spruce plantings. such a great species. I actually sandwiched mine(white spruce) in between some pumice/ turface / bark mix below and above the moss shit ball, seemed to work ok, but really want to get it out of that. I'm guessing wireme's reasoning is that he is waiting for the random leap of back budding to repot, which is definitely sound logic with his experience with the species, and the moss ball 4 year method. my only thought was that the leap might have came in year 3 with a one season in moss recovery quarantine, then season 2 spring or even mid summer repot. Either way just nit picking, you probably just have a shit load of trees and called it good until now because its not dead, I get that too.
 
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Thanks, why do you say that about ground layer?
You mentioned "Nebari is a problem, I should set it up for ground layering soon", i did not hear a lot of successful layers from spruce. That's why i would not advice that on this material. but if it works it will be a better tree.
 

Waltron

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You mentioned "Nebari is a problem, I should set it up for ground layering soon", i did not hear a lot of successful layers from spruce. That's why i would not advice that on this material. but if it works it will be a better tree.

who needs nebari when you have that bark on that small tree am I rite?
 

Saddler

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I wouldn't layer the tree. I can't recall seeing a spruce in the wild with nebari (but then again, when I was surrounded with them, I didn't see the trees for the forest) and it could very much be an almost Walter Pall level naturalistic style one day. I want one SOOOOO bad and you are making it worse with that tree/bark. If you are going to air layer, maybe try it first on a specimen in the ground. If you can make it work there first....
 

wireme

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. Either way just nit picking, you probably just have a shit load of trees and called it good until now because its not dead, I get that too.

I'm not sure. Maybe if I had less trees or considered this one higher priority I would have repotted by now. Prob at least would have cleaned and replaced side or partial side by now I guess. I just tipped another of the same out of the pot to have a peek. The one we're discussing is tight in the pot, harder to get out without grabbing the trunk and rubbing bark off. The other looks good though. I found an ant nest at the bottom, there were some dead roots in that area. image.jpg
 

wireme

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Here's a Blue Spruce I styled at my Extending Species course last fall. Just pure spruce style. The second photo is after Ryan re-potted it this spring. Sorry, as usual, I forgot a before photo, but it looked kind of like a toilet brush!
View attachment 147825
View attachment 147824

Nice work, nice tree! To me that looks a bit more maybe alpine style than what I'm thinking of which would be more mid forest style, similar though.
 
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