Blue Spruce help needed......
- Thread starter greerhw
- Start date
TheSteve
Chumono
These will back bud if you look at them crooked. They like to be wetter than most conifers but never style and repot in the same year. Give it a light trim Harry while you're thinking on the tree and it'll give Marco plenty to work with next year.
You can get some great material here and Todd is a good guy to deal with.
keep it green,
Harry
http://www.coloradobonsai.com/
shohin kid
Shohin
Send Walter an email, I am sure you have seen some of his spruce.
rlist
Shohin
Harry-
My buddy and your namesake (albeit much younger and way hipper) has some good info on his website:
http://www.bonsai4me.com/SpeciesGuide/SpeciesIntro.html
My advice: Feet up, cold beer, whip in hand, watch Marco fly...
Rich
My buddy and your namesake (albeit much younger and way hipper) has some good info on his website:
http://www.bonsai4me.com/SpeciesGuide/SpeciesIntro.html
My advice: Feet up, cold beer, whip in hand, watch Marco fly...
Rich
Last edited:
Dwight
Chumono
Harry , I've tried three or four of these from the nursery ( the X-mass tree type ) and never been able to keep one alive. Maybe next spring I'll try again and bug you for advice. Good luck with this one.
noissee
Mame
Don't you think texas would be a little too hot for this type of tree? I would even be wary trying to grow it in OK.
That's why I didn't spend too much money on it, if it does well, who knows. They do well in the landscape here.
keep it green,
Harry
Dwight
Chumono
theye're supposed too. West Texas isn't really Texas in a way. Our altitude in EP averages about 4000 ft and some folk have luck with blue spruce in the landscape. I suspect the biggest problem is underwatering. It's as dry here as in Colorado.
Vance Wood
Lord Mugo
Anonymous User
Banned
Best in Show again Vance? 
It's about time you showed that Christmas tree farm find.
Will
It's about time you showed that Christmas tree farm find.
Will
Vance Wood
Lord Mugo
Best in Show again Vance?
It's about time you showed that Christmas tree farm find.
Will
Since you mentioned you wanted to see the tree I decided I would detail the tree: Removed some unnecessary branching, some old needles, layer out the pads, and rewire the entire tree including the apex---got carried away. It seems that I could always find something more that could be done. By the time I got done with it, or at least got it to the state you see it here, two weeks had passed and I had completely restyled the tree. Yes it was originally a mowed over tree from a Christmas tree farm where my wife and me were looking for trees one day. That was sometime around 1983.
It did win best in show but I think this time it deserved it. The picture does not do it justice. I'll attempt to get a better photo sometime in the next day or two.
AlainK
Imperial Masterpiece
Vance Wood
Lord Mugo
Beautiful.
Some say blue spruce make lousy bonsai...
That's true, some do say that, and some used to say that Mugo Pines make lousy bonsai. Both trees however fall into the category of effort. Blues are difficult because they do not respond to wiring with submitting immediately. They take constant wireing for years before some branches will stay where you put them. Also they are very picky, as my wife would say, and can be painful to work with, kind of like making a bonsai out of a roll of concertina wire.
In the USofA the Mugo, being a common landscape tree not found often in a configuration recognizable as a bonsai, are avoided because the work to transform one of these trees is long and takes some fore thought. In other words many consider this more work than they want to invest. So the tendency is to condemn the two trees as lousy bonsai rather than to admit that there is an unwillingness to take them seriously.
The European masters have pretty much dispelled the Mugo myth by using harvested natural dwarfs. The Colorado Blue still needs someone to do the same. I know there are a lot of specimens available out there in the woods but none seem to be making their way to the growers tables. I suspect mostly because many consider them a waste of time---something I guarantee is not true. I think there is a real possibility for this resource. It kind of reminds me of the old Gold rush days in Colorado where the story goes that many went to find gold but were hampered by this stubborn, sticky blue clay that cloged up everything and made getting the gold out very difficult. Someone had the idea to analyze this goo and discovered that it was high grade silver ore and so was born what was to be called The Com-stock Load, one of the richest silver discoveries in history.
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