Picea glauca conica

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I know these arnt super popular, but here's a few dwarf Alberta spruce I picked up today. I plan to document these.over the Next few years. Most likely will lose the photos or the phone they came from. So I'll post and document them here.  
Dec 26 2015, The first tree in the front is the way they came, the one in the rear got a slight trim and guy wired to pull the branches down. The plan is to work them slow and reduce the height over a couple season, I will leave the guy wires in place until next winter, only pinch new growth in the spring and needle pluck next fall according to bonsai4me article on spruce, next winter I will wire all the guy wired branches and add some bends, pull the branches down further, prune back to new buds and reduce the height a little more.. No repot until spring 2017. Below are the 2 larger ones trimmed up and guy wired.[url=https://servimg.com/view/18082002/43][/url
and these were so.e smaller ones I wired up hard for some movement. I'll put these guys in the ground and hopefully get away with leaving the wire in place for a couple seasons to help keep the bends. I used plenty of raffa and black vinyl tape to insulate the bark from the wire.[url=https://servimg.com/view/18082002/44][/url
Thanks for looking and I will.post up dates as I work on these trees

This is a very tough species to train as bonsai, but with proper care and knowledge anything is possible. I have however seen a few good specimens... Bill Valavanis has one.

Nice acquisitions, White spruce can, given a decade or two, make nice bonsai. It was the "bird's nest" type cultivars and "dwarf Alberta" type cultivars that really have the reputation for being difficult to bonsai. I don't know if the issues are the same with the "conica" or conical growing type cultivars. The type form of the species, the type used for reforestation is no more difficult to use for bonsai than Black Hills Spruce, Englemann spruce, or other spruces. All spruces take a number of years before branches "remember" the shapes they have been wired to.

If they were mine, I would consider keeping one, maybe the first one, or the second one, I would keep one of them just as tall as it is, plan on finishing it as bonsai possibly a little taller. If you just bring the branches down to look a bit older, these already have the density needed to portray a middle age mountain valley forest spruce. Long spire of branches and green. Depends on whether there is enough trunk taper or not. In person I might change my mind.

Leo Schordje wrote:

If they were mine, I would consider keeping one, maybe the first one, or the second one, I would keep one of them just as tall as it is, plan on finishing it as bonsai possibly a little taller. If you just bring the branches down to look a bit older, these already have the density needed to portray a middle age mountain valley forest spruce. Long spire of branches and green. Depends on whether there is enough trunk taper or not. In person I might change my mind.

Not much for taper beyond the first 8 inches or so up from the base. I was going try an reduce next fall by a little less than half and wire up a new leader. Then again the following fall reduce the main trunk again leaving the wired up leader as new top and let that grow to induce more taper.... Im assuming your suggestion is to leave it tall and remove more of the lower growth for a tall slender informal? I had thought that as well but the trunk after the fisrt small bend is pretty straight and boring on both trees, lots of feeding and keeping the branches pulled down is the plan for a little while untill the tree shows me what it wants to do. Thanks for the words guys

After years of taxonomic juggling, the final result has been settled. Black Hills spruce and Dwarf Alberta spruce are the same hybrid. Black Hills spruce is Picea xalbertiana (that's a times sign) (glauca x engelmannii). Dwarf Alberta spruce is Picea xalbertiana 'Conica.'
Iris