Collected Blue Spruce

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This is one of the trees I collected this year. It had a thick branch starting about halfway up the tree and growing straight up, that branch is what shows as the apex now. This needs time to recover, a couple years so I haven't even thought about styling options yet. For now it will recover, regain health and have the foliage worked back.

For size comparison, the second picture has my daughter next to the tree. Before the chop, the tree was 4 feet taller.



Will
 

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grog

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I'm very drawn to that fantastic flare at the tree's base. Nice find and obviously a job well done collecting that one.
 

Tachigi

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Will, out of curiosity. Why such a small pot if your going to let it recoup over the next couple of years?

As Grog said, nice flair at the base. Will look forward to what you do down the road with this.
 
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Will, out of curiosity. Why such a small pot if your going to let it recoup over the next couple of years?

As Grog said, nice flair at the base. Will look forward to what you do down the road with this.


Hi Tom,

This tree as well as another, even fatter Blue Spruce and the Honey Locus shown on another thread we part of a strip malls landscaping, the mall is being re-landscaped and I obtained permission from the ower of the Arby's there to remove these trees before they were tossed. As landscape material they were, of course, planted orginally in a canvas bag.

Upon digging this Spruce out, I noticed the roots had remained close, at least there were a lot of fine roots really close to the trunk, so close in fact that with only the removal of three larger roots, it fit into this pot with about 1 1/2 inch clearance all around. So other than to over-pot, I put it in this pot. Unfortunately, the orginal tap root had a lot of the feeders attached, hence the deeper pot for now.

I still need to remove the other spruce soon, I hope for the same conditions.


Thanks,


Will
 
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Do you have photos from other angles? I do like the nebari on this one.
 
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Do you have photos from other angles? I do like the nebari on this one.


There is no Nebari on this one visable, what poor Nebari there was is buried, scored and dusted in a few places for future Nebari. A few small cuts here and there on the trunk, a dusting, and a layer of spagnum moss around it can do wonders over the course of a few years. At any rate it sure beats just going forward without corrections.

The lack of Nebari on anything (except Literati) is something that should have a correction plan started at the very first, right from the first potting. If steps are taken early, the nebari can be happily developing under ground while the tree is being brought toward it's future. In a couple years, once a re-pot is due and I can safely remove the tap root, this tree will be put into a shallower box and the new roots spread out. Eventually the work will be revealed as the tree nears its final pot.

I do have photos from other angles somewhere on the home box, I'll post some later.





Will
 
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There is no Nebari on this one visable, what poor Nebari there was is buried, scored and dusted in a few places for future Nebari. A few small cuts here and there on the trunk, a dusting, and a layer of spagnum moss around it can do wonders over the course of a few years. At any rate it sure beats just going forward without corrections.

The lack of Nebari on anything (except Literati) is something that should have a correction plan started at the very first, right from the first potting. If steps are taken early, the nebari can be happily developing under ground while the tree is being brought toward it's future. In a couple years, once a re-pot is due and I can safely remove the tap root, this tree will be put into a shallower box and the new roots spread out. Eventually the work will be revealed as the tree nears its final pot.

I do have photos from other angles somewhere on the home box, I'll post some later.
Will

Thanks for the info. I will file it away. However, the advantage I see on this tree is the large swelling at its base. Are you saying you scored it farther down? What does it look like down there?
 
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Under the soil level is a minor reverse taper where the plastic twine that orginally held the burlap bag around the tree years ago dug into the tree. This did a couple of things, it created the swelled trunk above soil level, it also created some roots where it dug in, sort of like we do when we air-later using a piece of wire twisted tightly to bite into the bark. These roots were at the same level, but not evenly spread out, some were thick, many very thin.

I cut back the thick ones at an angle and dusted with rooting powder. I scored the area where there were no roots, and I pruned a couple roots that were growing at the same spot. I hope this will encourage new roots to grow where there were none and also to help bring the thinner ones closer to the size of the larger.

At the very worst, I leave the tree at the level it is and work with what you see. At the best, eventually as I work the root mass down, I will expose presentable nebari. Who knows what the end result will be, but whatever it is, I can say I did all I could do.


Will
 
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