Dwarf Alberta Spruce, gleanings and musings

[James W.]

Just thought I would throw this out there for discussion/information. Most of this is distilled from various sources on the web.
Species:
Picea glauca
White spruce, Black Hills spruce and Alberta spruce are regional variants of P. glauca
P. glauca is more closely related to Engleman spruce than to Norway, Jezo or Korean spruces
Origin:
Collected near Lake Laggan, Alberta in 1904 by John G. Jack
"Jeans Dilly" is a more dwarfed sport (dwarfer? miniature)
Propagation:
basically always by cuttings
Differentiation from species:
Slow growing - less than 3" per year
Needles are much shorter, finer and softer, similar to young spruce seedlings. It never develops stiff adult needles (except when it reverts)
As a bonsai subject:
Pros:
Naturally small needles
Relatively short internodes
Readily available
Easily propagated
Flexible - easy to bend
Cold hardy
Tolerant of summer heat
Vigorous - 'want' to live
Relatively forgiving of soil and water
Back budding is possible on healthy trees (reports vary)
Easy to quick-style (instant bonsai)
Cons:
Slow to increase caliper
slow to heal
slow to set branches (slower than other spruce?)
slow to recover from work
sensitive to timing (I have killed branches by wiring)
no stock grown developed for pre-bonsai
no yamadori
nursery stock is rarely good for bonsai
susceptible to spider mites
Summary:
DAS are potentially wonderful but difficult bonsai requiring much patience. May be easier to grow than other spruce but much slower to develop.

Observations/thoughts:
Any information specific to white spruce, Black Hills spruce or Alberta spruce should be helpful, especially in regards to timing
Also Engleman or Ezo spruce might cultural have similarities

I see quite a few bonsai beginnings documented, very few progressions and almost no older trees.

Heavy initial pruning and bending is possible but tree needs years to recover. Additional work the next year will severely weaken the tree and slow recovery considerably or just kill it.

Apparently root reduction and repotting into good mix can occur the spring following a heavy fall styling session. But then the "one insult per year" rule is in affect, meaning next styling session should wait for a year from the next autumn.
Back budding will not occur on a weak tree
So - chasing back foliage on long branches will be a long, slow process

I estimate 30+ years to develop a nice old looking bonsai?

This tree has been commercially available for less than 100 years, widely available and cheap for only about 20 (or so) years. Therefore not surprising that very few good examples of mature bonsai exist.

Lend themselves nicely to young looking bonsai, especially as part of a forest

Trunk chops to produce more taper are probably do-able, but will take a long time to look OK (10+ years?) Do people do this with other spuces? or is taper developed with sacrifice branches like pines?

Larger nursery trees and yard trees have many small diameter branches with tufts of foliage at the ends. Might judicious early pruning alleviate that condition by focusing energy on fewer branches and letting light and air into the interior to grow shorter, fatter branches.
I wonder if spiral trimmed trees might have had this done inadvertently

how easily would they air layer? and would it accomplish anything?

If they tolerate root work especially when young, they might be a candidate for root-over-rock.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

I have about 5 DAS.
Setting branches takes 3 years, and I need to wire them twice a year because they thicken so darn fast. The scars that come with it aren't pretty. Oh the damn scars! You want parts of your branch to be as fat as the trunk, somewhere right in the middle of the branch while the rest stays skinny? Leave on some wire or take a chunk of bark with it while you remove it. Instant "reward"!
They can take a beating, like full bare root repots in winter, and still survive. Not pretty, not vivid, but alive.
They heal faster than most broadleafs I know.

If you put out a sacrifice branch, that sacrifice branch will thicken to the size of the trunk, and then it might end up increasing caliper and taper. I haven't gotten that far yet.

They're cheap and fun to play with, but since their growth habit is upwards by nature (for DAS at least) they suck for bonsai if you'd ask me. They need continuous wiring to look like a miniature spruce. I like them nonetheless.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Key to remember, the normal form of white spruce is a great tree for bonsai.
Picea glauca in its own right is a great species.

Picea glauca densata - Black Hills Spruce is a subspecies or ecotype that comes from the lowest rainfall area of any North American spruce. This race is well adapted to low humidity and high daytime temperatures. Now when I say it comes from the driest habitat of any spruce - there is still water available - they come from high enough elevation in the Black Hills that there is ground moisture during the dry weeks with no rain. There is also condensation, dew, at night. So they do require regular watering, they are not like Ponderosa pines, who seem fine after a missed watering.

Dwarf Alberta Spruce - Your list of pros and cons seems more or less on target. Their extreme upright habit for branches and foliage is their main draw back. They really are handy for putting together a forest, they can look nice quickly, and the nice look can last a decade or so.

But the regular forms of white spruce and Black Hills spruce as young trees can make decent forests too. If I had my choice, I would pick up the normal forms first, leave the DAS for the landscapers.

 

[James W.]

A few more observations:
Spider mites love DAS but simply watering the whole tree every time will keep them in check.

They can thrive for a long time in their original nursery pots. It is not necessary to get in a rush to repot them.

They are sensitive to timing of manipulating the branches. Do not try to wire or unwire in the spring after growth has started or during the summer while they are still growing. Wait until late summer when all the fresh growth has hardened off. Even pruning and cleaning up in the spring is problematic if you cannot refrain from pushing branches this way and that. My observation is that every branch that gets moved too much in May will die by the end of August.

 

[James W.]

DAS strength seems to be driven by their foliage. Removal of too much foliage will lead to a sharp decline in health which make them susceptible to problems, including spider mites and stressful weather events. Removal of 30% of the foliage seems to be safe, 60% may just kill the tree.

 

[MaciekA]

In my experience DAS can eventually take quite a bit of foliage reduction, but only if you first treat it like a nursery pine, or even like a yamadori:

1. No work prior to or during aggregate soil transition.
2. Transition to aggregate soil first in whatever way you're best-experienced with. HBR, topdown, outer + inner followup, etc. Whatever works.
3. After tree is in aggregate soil, core replaced too, wait until the tree blows out with copious foliage after the transition repot(s).
4. Bonsai development is now a lot more safe.

I've been growing this species for 9 years and failed repeatedly and embarrassingly until I started learning pine horticulture and tried to treat my DAS like I would a pine --basically, the species can be played with, but ideally, should be first "set up for play" (as in the list above). Then it gets much much easier.

My unscientific thinking is this:

DAS genetics originate from high elevations and all of our DAS are clones that maintain those high-elevation adaptations. Relatively dry conditions and significantly stronger sun exposure than lower elevations. This implies a thicker cuticle. In studies of spruce (see T. Anfodillo, 2002), higher elevation trees tend to have thicker cuticles than lower elevation trees. As with pine, the thicker cuticle implies a tree that sips water slower and therefore recovers from every bonsai operation far more slowly. The risks of this recovery rate are greatly magnified if the root system is easily overwhelmed by moisture or has poor air flow. This is the case with a tree in nursery mix but whose foliage has been cut back significantly. Ideally, that foliage should have been used to power the transition repot recovery.

Another unscientific-but-anecdotal thought is that picea glauca is closely related to picea engelmannii. I can't speak for the whole geographic range, but the conditions where I find p. engelmannii growing in the wild (east slopes of the Cascades) have very well-drained volcanic soils, are above 5000 feet elevation, and have them growing side by side with lodgepole pine, western white pine, and ponderosa pine (!). In bonsai, all of these species do very badly outside of what I'd call a "pine horticulture" (durable/non-decaying, drainable, aggregate, breathable). I think the nursery industry is just doing what works best to get these trees into landscapes ASAP and that sets our DASes up for failure in bonsai. The nursery's goals are at cross purposes with our goals.

My favorite cultivar of this species is "Sanders Blue". It does very well in a pond basket w/ pumice. I've found that a pumice/pond basket DAS does better in extreme heat waves (notably PNW heat dome 2021, where we got to 116F / 46.6C for quite a few hours) than when in an organic mix, where they get absolutely cooked.

 

[James W.]

In my experience DAS can eventually take quite a bit of foliage reduction, but only if you first treat it like a nursery pine, or even like a yamadori:

1. No work prior to or during aggregate soil transition.
2. Transition to aggregate soil first in whatever way you're best-experienced with. HBR, topdown, outer + inner followup, etc. Whatever works.
3. After tree is in aggregate soil, core replaced too, wait until the tree blows out with copious foliage after the transition repot(s).
4. Bonsai development is now a lot more safe.

I've been growing this species for 9 years and failed repeatedly and embarrassingly until I started learning pine horticulture and tried to treat my DAS like I would a pine --basically, the species can be played with, but ideally, should be first "set up for play" (as in the list above). Then it gets much much easier.

My unscientific thinking is this:

DAS genetics originate from high elevations and all of our DAS are clones that maintain those high-elevation adaptations. Relatively dry conditions and significantly stronger sun exposure than lower elevations. This implies a thicker cuticle. In studies of spruce (see T. Anfodillo, 2002), higher elevation trees tend to have thicker cuticles than lower elevation trees. As with pine, the thicker cuticle implies a tree that sips water slower and therefore recovers from every bonsai operation far more slowly. The risks of this recovery rate are greatly magnified if the root system is easily overwhelmed by moisture or has poor air flow. This is the case with a tree in nursery mix but whose foliage has been cut back significantly. Ideally, that foliage should have been used to power the transition repot recovery.

Another unscientific-but-anecdotal thought is that picea glauca is closely related to picea engelmannii. I can't speak for the whole geographic range, but the conditions where I find p. engelmannii growing in the wild (east slopes of the Cascades) have very well-drained volcanic soils, are above 5000 feet elevation, and have them growing side by side with lodgepole pine, western white pine, and ponderosa pine (!). In bonsai, all of these species do very badly outside of what I'd call a "pine horticulture" (durable/non-decaying, drainable, aggregate, breathable). I think the nursery industry is just doing what works best to get these trees into landscapes ASAP and that sets our DASes up for failure in bonsai. The nursery's goals are at cross purposes with our goals.

My favorite cultivar of this species is "Sanders Blue". It does very well in a pond basket w/ pumice. I've found that a pumice/pond basket DAS does better in extreme heat waves (notably PNW heat dome 2021, where we got to 116F / 46.6C for quite a few hours) than when in an organic mix, where they get absolutely cooked.

Your 4 steps is what works for most spruce, I don't know about pines.
Another thing to remember about DAS is that they are "stuck" in the juvenile stage of p. glauca. That is one reason they are always reaching up so hard but it also means that they root (fairly) easily.
I have found them to be very tolerant of different soil conditions, my current soil mix for DAS is about 1/2 organic.

 

[James W.]

Quoting @Tentakelaertje and @MaciekA from this thread

Tentakelaertje:
Let the wire bite guys, or else you'll be wiring the next 20 years every year. These long, elastic and resinous fibers need to accept their new position and that is easiest when they don't have a choice. Twisting and cracking and ingrown wire or even making a longitudinal slice to heal over will all force the tree to produce callous along the branch, which you need to hold the bend into place. It *will* swell where the wire bites so be strategic about it. After 5 years of almost continually being in wire (couple wire reapplications inbetween just after removal of the old stuff) nearly all of the branches on mine are now staying in place. I'm in the process of fully wiring it again to get all bends and noob mistakes right but after this round I hope to keep it tidy with a couple of (guy) wires and pruning.

Things I've noticed or have been taught that severely impact the success of working DAS are:
-Keep your skin grease off the foliage (!!!)
-Don't prune off too much at once (60-70% max)
-Wire the branches in stages, eg. for a first styling keep it on the primaries/secondaries. As the branches hold better you can increase total % of wired branchlets and everything.
-Allow it to get used to new levels of sun carefully. An extra week in half shade will make the difference between fried and alive.
-They LOVE getting misted and I mist mine every evening. They seem to hate spraying though so be careful with foliar feeding.
-Work in winter, when it's not terrible weather to work on trees it's not right for them. If your hands are frozen and cold from thinking of going outside to poke around it's a perfect time to work DAS.

You defo can get away with ignoring all of the above (ask me how I know lol) but recovery time will go up so much it's no fun to look at it anymore. They can take a lot of abuse but your aftercare will have to be right on the money or you'll wait years for it to be healthy enough to touch again. The first and last especially make a big difference.
I'm no pro and my evidence is anecdotal so the rules are far from set but I hope this helps! Also, not every DAS is identical so on some you'll get away with more than others.

MaciekA:
I have had similar success as @Tentakelaertje with wiring DAS. For your primaries, you need to let wire bite in a bit before they're really set. This species is no more an insta-bonsai than ezo spruce, so growing out and thickening the branches until they hold their position is part of the game.

With regards to misting, I don't mist, but I do hose down the tree in the middle of very hot days in the summer to cool it down as my DAS sits with pines in an outdoor oven hot enough to bake a pizza. I only mist when wiring/unwiring, something I've been taught by my teacher when working on ezo spruce. He was taught to mist while wiring/unwiring ezo as an apprentice in Japan.

Similar to @Tentakelaertje aside from spring pinching I don't touch my DAS again until much later in the year when temperatures have dropped. Sometimes I've worked it in September but because Oregon can sometimes get very hot even in late October, I push that work back into the dormant season now. Worth it, and this is when I work ezo at my teacher's too.

You defo can get away with ignoring all of the above (ask me how I know lol) but recovery time will go up so much it's no fun to look at it anymore

I think this is very wise with DAS . With spruce, restraint's reward is a bountiful flush, and a surplus to spend on thinning/pruning/etc. Haste's punishment is a DAS with discolored needles and very sluggish growth. Ask me how I know...

Tentakelaertje:
Dzięki for the additions @MaciekA . Hosing it down works too, as long as the crap that's collecting in the density of the foliage gets washed away. Mine has increased a lot in foliage health after starting to mist daily. I use a garden hose connected spraying wand made by @defra, which is adjustable and basically the greatest thing I've used to water. Wearing gloves is something I also do but needles poke through easily and they make it hard to do fine wiring. Without them the needles start showing browning patches within hours so they're still in use. The needles poking through get that anyway, even when after washing hands and gloves with dishwashing soap beforehand. If I wasn't so attached to it I'd sell it ngl.

Another thing I was taught in terms of foilage management is the following 3 year schedule:
Year 1. Take new growth back past the cuticle
Year 2. Prune back to the newly developed buds at the base of the twigs
Year 3. Rest year, allow growth to replenish energy in the roots

Then it's year 1 again.

MaciekA:
The needles are quite delicate on this species, much more delicate than ezo spruce. I personally don't believe that hand oils have any impact on needles, but incidental contact can cause a lot of mechanical damage (bending needles) very quickly and easily, and since we're generally doing more dramatic bends on this species one's average early wiring experiences with DAS might also impact sap flow to branches, discoloring needles global to a branch generally. If your wiring skill is very precise and well trained on densely-needled conifers and you are very good about distributing the forces of bends to the right places (into the wire or a wrap, or by doing incremental bending spread over years), you can avoid needle discoloration issues with this species. You can also avoid it in more internal areas in the more typical way for pinaceae-family species, by thinning out old needles wherever wire is going to go, and then wiring out the outermost detail levels with a very light wire and very light touch -- gotta be practiced because you don't want to be going back and re-fixing mistakes and jostling soft needles around. Works for ezo, works here, but DAS punishes mistakes ruthlessly

Tentakelaertje:
Great point about the mechanical stress Maciek. I didn't believe the skin grease thing either, especially because not every DAS is showing stress from it. The foliage on mine seems to be particularly touchy, it also hates foliar feeding with a passion. Just hb101 and fish emulsion so I figured it wouldn't mind but no.. others in the same study group are spraying and touching their spruce all the time without any adverse effects.

 

[Cajunrider]

"Tolerant of summer heat"
You must be talking about summer heat well north of me.

 

[James W.]

"Tolerant of summer heat"
You must be talking about summer heat well north of me.

Yes, I am a bit north of you. We average about 12 days over 100 (degrees F) each year. In 2022 I counted 47 days over 95. Not as hot as Dallas or OK City, and nowhere close to those poor guys in Phoenix.
My DAS don't skip a beat all summer, almost as happy as the junipers. Basically everything else struggles through the summer heat, especially other spruces.
I have only had DAS in my garden since fall of 2017 so I realize that my observations are not exhaustive.

 

[Cajunrider]

Yes, I am a bit north of you. We average about 12 days over 100 (degrees F) each year. In 2022 I counted 47 days over 95. Not as hot as Dallas or OK City, and nowhere close to those poor guys in Phoenix.
My DAS don't skip a beat all summer, almost as happy as the junipers. Basically everything else struggles through the summer heat, especially other spruces.
I have only had DAS in my garden since fall of 2017 so I realize that my observations are not exhaustive.

I am concerned about not having enough cold days. I read that DAS requires cold days to thrive.

 

[James W.]

I am concerned about not having enough cold days. I read that DAS requires cold days to thrive.

That would be of concern to me, no way to know except by growing one for a while. DAS are a different from the standard white spruce, so maybe? But then, they do not like to be messed with outside their dormancy period so that could be an issue if they never go dormant.

 

[HENDO]

I tried a couple DAS when I lived in TX and they lived very miserable lives before expiring, 10~12 months later. Likely due to no dormancy period.

TX/LA is a far cry from their native environment, if I were still living down there I wouldn't mess with them again that's for sure.

I'm back in Alberta and will likely give them another shot up here. I'm currently keeping my white/engelmann buried, mulched, and piled up with snow for the Winter.

 

[Ramron67]

They are sensitive to timing of manipulating the branches. Do not try to wire or unwire in the spring after growth has started or during the summer while they are still growing. Wait until late summer when all the fresh growth has hardened off. Even pruning and cleaning up in the spring is problematic if you cannot refrain from pushing branches this way and that. My observation is that every branch that gets moved too much in May will die by the end of August.

I have a nursery stock DAS that I had planned to start working on in the Spring.
Do I understand correctly that it would be better to work on it before Spring?
Right now in the Boston area it goes from a few degrees below freezing at night, to a few degrees above freezing during the day.
Thanks.

 

[MaciekA]

I have a nursery stock DAS that I had planned to start working on in the Spring.
Do I understand correctly that it would be better to work on it before Spring?
Right now in the Boston area it goes from a few degrees below freezing at night, to a few degrees above freezing during the day.
Thanks.

I recommend leaving the tree canopy completely untouched this year and instead make major progress in transitioning it away from nursery soil and into aggregate. For me that means a half bare root or some similar significant workback of roots while leaving some other portion functioning. The smaller/younger/less expensive the DAS stock the more daring I'd personally be. I wouldn't work it while it's still in pure nursery soil. I wouldn't slip pot it either (this just delays the inevitable pain and encourages working the tree before it has a transitioned root system). DAS punishes slip potting and rushing to work the canopy mercilessly.

 

[Ramron67]

The smaller/younger/less expensive the DAS stock the more daring I'd personally be.

Mine is certainly small, and presumably young. It currently stands about a foot tall.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

All Picea glauca make reasonable bonsai. But if you have not already purchased one, in my opinion the best for bonsai is the Black Hills Spruce. Far easier to work with than the others. Andy Smith at Golden Arrow has or had some great 70 to 200 year old specimens at reasonable prices for very old trees. But I have not checked his current availability. Most landscaping nurseries carry young Black Hills Spruce.

Dwarf Alberta is okay only if you want ascending branches in the finished tree. DAS is cheap and readily available, males a good forest planting.