Big Al repotted

I repotted this Alberta Spruce today. The tree stands about 5 feet tall including the Sara Rayner pot. I did a major trim before the repot. These trees are slow growing and it will take a couple of years for it to fill out.

Nice tree. And a big one!

Mike, this is a nice looking spruce tree. It reminds me of some of the pine trees around here! Do you have plans for wiring any of the branches, or let them grow as they are? Regards, Todd

Todd, spruces have a long memory. You can wire them, and when you take the wire off, the branches go back where they came from. What you see is what you get. I suppose if I wanted to show the tree, I could wire all the branches, and then cut the wire off sometime later.

Big Al has a certain resonance for people from my city. See if the British folks can work it out

Well Ive seen alot of Alberta Spruce in my time but I have never been able to see that in one. How long have you been training that one??

Curtis wrote:Well Ive seen alot of Alberta Spruce in my time but I have never been able to see that in one. How long have you been training that one??

More than 10 years.

bobby little wrote:Big Al has a certain resonance for people from my city. See if the British folks can work it out

Now Bobby, are you talking about your adopted city in the ancient kingdom of Mercia, or the ancestral and spiritual one up in Toonland? If the latter, then I'm guessing a certain Mr Shearer. And an interesting (or totally uninteresting depending on your perspective) aside is that in googling for possibilities, I discovered I share a DofB with Weird Al Yankovic)

But we're hijacking Mike's thread. (And please, please, please - don't let us start the Paul Simon lyrics competition again! )



Mike, these spruce are not among my favourite trees for bonsai -mostly for the reason that you already suggest re the difficulty in getting branches to go where you want them to. But I have to admit, yours is kinda impressive in its way.

It'd be good if you could post a pic of it after its recent haircut has had a chance to grow in a bit as I suspect we're not seeing it in its full glory in this pic. I like the pot too.

I don't have any experience with this species but it looks like a pain to bonsai.

I would prune the lower branches off the main trunk as I don't like branches starting on both trunks from the same height.