Canadian spruce

[plantmanky]

It's been hot all summer here and I've been without AC the whole time so I thought I'd post a picture that might help others in the same position to at least mentally cool off! I sure know every time I look at this pic a cool brease seems to blow across me. Actually I have put this in because I have seen many people intrested in canadian spruce and many workshops using them but rarely have I seen them in a show. More often than not it's because they are difficult to work with. The easiest way as far as I'm concerned is to leave them alone and let them do their thing. The one in the picure below is 35 years old now, and the only thing I've ever done with it as far as training foliage is to pinch the new growth in the spring and some strategic minimal branch pruning. It's never been wired in it's life.

Picea glauca "conica"

P_glauca_rck__sm.jpg (231.06 KiB) Viewed 1483 times

[s.samolsky]

I have been wanting to try spruce - is the leave it alone method good for all spruce or just work with Canadians?

[plantmanky]

I have been wanting to try spruce - is the leave it alone method good for all spruce or just work with Canadians?

Many Spruce species have been used for bonsai and the leave it alone approach is just a personal method that I have used for the "conica" cultivar of Canadian Spruce. All members of the Spruce family do not respond well to wiring. They all have a tendency to have wired branches spring back into their original position even when they have been wired for 2 or 3 years. This in no way should inhibit one from using Spruce as an excellent bonsai subject but rather guide one into paying close attention to pruning and using the clip and grow techniques to their advantage with some wireing on the smaller branches. The most common Spruce cultivar "conica" (Picea glauca "conica") so commonly found in American nurseries is one that has very tight conical growth with branches always growing in an uprigth position right off of the trunk which makes it difficult to work with and does require patients if you want branches in a more horizontal position. In the example above I have just spent time keeping the new growth tightly pinched to no more than 1/4"-3/8" each year to make the trees spread out horizontally.