DWARF COLORADO BLUE SPRUCE FIND!

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Last week Diane stopped by a nearby garden center and discovered a couple of interesting trees, a Waldbrunn Colorado Blue Spruce and a Sharps Pygmy Japanese Maple. She sent me a few photos and the next day we went together to pick up the two trees. She has a good trained eye. This cultivar of spruce is new to me and has small foliage with a bluish color


On Saturday and Sunday we displayed at the 41st Park Avenue Fest, featuring over 350 artists from across the country. We have participated in nearly 30 of the events selling indoor beginner bonsai, a few specimens and demonstrating. This is done to introduce another group of the public to bonsai, hopefully for them to register for my Introductory Bonsai Course and purchase a healthy and beautiful indoor bonsai. Good friends Rick Marriott and Alan Adair along with Diane talked to the public and sold bonsai while I demonstrated on the spruce and maple.

Although the retail price was $42.99, there was a 30% sale on so I actually only paid $30 for the tree. Not bad....
Diane really picked a winner with the Waldbrunn Colorado Blue Spruce! The trunk had excellent trunk taper and movement with plenty of branches. On Saturday I worked five hours to shape the tree, this is in addition to spending another hour finding the base of the trunk and surface roots before the festival demonstration. The wiring and shaping so long because I had to answer questions too.

The Sharps Pygmy Japanese Maple also came out well, but did not take nearly the time to design, prune, wire and shape. When I finished I was mad because it would have made an excellent demonstration for my Black Scissors Live Demo Around the World on Sunday, September 10th at 2pm. There will be live demonstrations from 40 artists around the world throughout the day. I did not expect the tree to be a good demonstration tree, but it was. Its extremely difficult to demonstrate on a deciduous species and end up with more than a skeleton or stump. This tree had plenty of branches with small foliage.

Since the maple and spruce came out quite nice we returned to the garden center to look for more. Luckily we found two more of the Waldbrunn Colorado Blue Spruce and another Sharps Pygmy Japanese Maple. I’ll use the maple as part of my live demonstration which will be on Training Maple Bonsai.


My assistant Alan Adair and I transplanted the spruce into a training pot. He washed the soil surface looking for additional roots to display.

1.JPG 20170805_100834.JPG SPRAY.JPG LABEL.JPG SPRTUCE.JPG
 

Adair M

Pinus Envy
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Last week Diane stopped by a nearby garden center and discovered a couple of interesting trees, a Waldbrunn Colorado Blue Spruce and a Sharps Pygmy Japanese Maple. She sent me a few photos and the next day we went together to pick up the two trees. She has a good trained eye. This cultivar of spruce is new to me and has small foliage with a bluish color


On Saturday and Sunday we displayed at the 41st Park Avenue Fest, featuring over 350 artists from across the country. We have participated in nearly 30 of the events selling indoor beginner bonsai, a few specimens and demonstrating. This is done to introduce another group of the public to bonsai, hopefully for them to register for my Introductory Bonsai Course and purchase a healthy and beautiful indoor bonsai. Good friends Rick Marriott and Alan Adair along with Diane talked to the public and sold bonsai while I demonstrated on the spruce and maple.

Although the retail price was $42.99, there was a 30% sale on so I actually only paid $30 for the tree. Not bad....
Diane really picked a winner with the Waldbrunn Colorado Blue Spruce! The trunk had excellent trunk taper and movement with plenty of branches. On Saturday I worked five hours to shape the tree, this is in addition to spending another hour finding the base of the trunk and surface roots before the festival demonstration. The wiring and shaping so long because I had to answer questions too.

The Sharps Pygmy Japanese Maple also came out well, but did not take nearly the time to design, prune, wire and shape. When I finished I was mad because it would have made an excellent demonstration for my Black Scissors Live Demo Around the World on Sunday, September 10th at 2pm. There will be live demonstrations from 40 artists around the world throughout the day. I did not expect the tree to be a good demonstration tree, but it was. Its extremely difficult to demonstrate on a deciduous species and end up with more than a skeleton or stump. This tree had plenty of branches with small foliage.

Since the maple and spruce came out quite nice we returned to the garden center to look for more. Luckily we found two more of the Waldbrunn Colorado Blue Spruce and another Sharps Pygmy Japanese Maple. I’ll use the maple as part of my live demonstration which will be on Training Maple Bonsai.


My assistant Alan Adair and I transplanted the spruce into a training pot. He washed the soil surface looking for additional roots to display.

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Now you just need to go to Grow Moore Farms and buy a bunch more for workshops!
 

Bonsai Nut

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Wow. I'll offer you $60. Double your money! :)

A great example of how a practiced eye can find a diamond in the rough.
 

Paradox

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Wow thats a pretty awesome CBS.

I just purchased another dwarf variety from a local nursery.
I was going to wait until spring to repot but maybe I dont have to?
 

coh

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That's a great result for a $30 nursery tree!
 

defra

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Nice !
I bought a christmas tree blue spruce in januari but ill have to wait to do any work on it since i repotted it in late februari

Realy inspireing and make my fingers itch when i stand near my blue spruce even more :)
 

Gary McCarthy

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Gary,

Glad you like my new spruce bonsai. But, I doubt you can see it at my Open House & Sale in September. I'm taking it to sell in Chicago next week......

View attachment 156399
BUMMER.

I guess I'll just have to settle for seeing all the other beautiful trees in your collection :)
 

Lazylightningny

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I repot CBS mid to late Summer with no problems. Have a large one to do this weekend.
I'm glad you said this. Mine has been perpetually heavy for some time due to the wet weather. So yesterday, I started poking around the bottom of the root ball and found it was in clay, with an old, rotting burlap bag it had been in originally. I started digging out the clay as much as possible. Fortunately, there were hardly any roots in the clay ball. I backfilled with nursery soil and placed it on the ground so it can drain properly. I was worried, but since you repot in summer, I feel better about it.
 

CasAH

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Where?

Grimmy


40th Annual Midwest Bonsai Society show at the Chicago Botanic Gardens.

Now that I know how much he paid for the tree I may try to get a deal on it.



Not really I do not do evergreens, but I hope the tree is still there Friday afternoon so I can see it in person.
 
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