future picea forrest

[barrosinc]

So I bought 5 piceas
I want to make a forest on a slab some day. Probably 3 years from now as the trees aren't the healthiest.


1 and 5 being like half the size of 4 and 5, and 2 being in between 1.
This is kinda the order I am thinking by now... but can change in time.

Plan:
fall year 1: clean weed and expose nebari. wire branches down.
spring year 1: half bear repot of all 5 and into colanders.
spring year 2: second half bare root repot into same colander. wire again.
spring year 3: repot into slab.
spring year 4: win prizes


just kidding.

any tips are welcome!

 

[barrosinc]

here is a picture with my hand for scale.


any idea of the variety?

 

[0soyoung]

If you have a plan of what goes where, it may pay to go straight to a slab that you epoxy tie downs in the right places. I would make this planning be step 2.5.

Otherwise, you'll have a tricky task of wiring the trees to a board, a sheet of mesh, or a bamboo frame, or something along this line to make your actual forest design. I've done it this other way and found to be full of 'annoyances' .

Regardless, keep step 4 !

 

[barrosinc]

If you have a plan of what goes where, it may pay to go straight to a slab that you epoxy tie downs in the right places. I would make this planning be step 2.5.

Otherwise, you'll have a tricky task of wiring the trees to a board, a sheet of mesh, or a bamboo frame, or something along this line to make your actual forest design. I've done it this other way and found to be full of 'annoyances' .

Regardless, keep step 4 !

Do they look healthy enough???

 

[0soyoung]

No, they don't. I agree with your fall year 1, spring year 1, and spring year 2 plans.

 

[Adair M]

I wouldn't expose nebari. Find out where it is, certainly, but no need to expose it.

If you want to plant on a slab, you'll need a flat root system. Colander? I don't know... Maybe. Those bags look tall. The work is changing the roots from growing down, to growing "out" flat.

In a way, the Ebihara method might be better to get a flat root system! But, no, don't bare root these trees. They're weak, and bare rooting them would not help. HBR, yes. When doing that I bet you could get rid of most of the downward growing roots.

 

[barrosinc]

No, they don't. I agree with your fall year 1, spring year 1, and spring year 2 plans.

I wouldn't expose nebari. Find out where it is, certainly, but no need to expose it.

If you want to plant on a slab, you'll need a flat root system. Colander? I don't know... Maybe. Those bags look tall. The work is changing the roots from growing down, to growing "out" flat.

In a way, the Ebihara method might be better to get a flat root system! But, no, don't bare root these trees. They're weak, and bare rooting them would not help. HBR, yes. When doing that I bet you could get rid of most of the downward growing roots.

I meant lower the soil to the level of the nebari.
I want to plant them on a slab but don't really need them to be too low as them seem to be set on a mound. And I thought colanders were really great for conifers. It will be difficult to do the Ebihara method because I don't want to touch the soil on one side.
I really like the beat up appearance of these piceas (any help identifying these?) so the forest I have in mind wont be very bushy at all.
I would love to aim for something like this:

 

[Adair M]

Yes, the point of the colander is to develop fine roots close to the trunk. It should work great for your trees.

The thing I was kidding about eithe reference to Ebihara was to make sure you develop a shallow root system. Colanders are usually bowl shaped. And can create a deep root system.

I have a friend who found some relatively shallow "drainage pan" that were like colanders. The only thing about them is since they were shallow, they dried out pretty quickly. If you can keep them watered, go for it.

 

[barrosinc]

Thanks for the clarification, Adair.
Last night I cleaned the weed and cut back dead branches.
I will see what I can find... they might just go into plastic pots but with better soil.

Any ideas on promoting backbudding?

 

[barrosinc]

any ideas on the variety? I am trying to read as much as possible on spruces, but would like to be a bit more specific.

 

[M. Frary]

any ideas on the variety? I am trying to read as much as possible on spruces, but would like to be a bit more specific.

Can you put up a picture of the whole tree Max? That may help.
To promote back budding on spruce wait until the new shoot is fully extended and just hardening off. Cut back to a few needles on the new shoot. The timing here is middle of summer.

 

[barrosinc]

Can you put up a picture of the whole tree Max? That may help.
To promote back budding on spruce wait until the new shoot is fully extended and just hardening off. Cut back to a few needles on the new shoot. The timing here is middle of summer.

I posted all 5 from heads to toes, I can try to upload them to a higher res image site if that helps.

 

[M. Frary]

I posted all 5 from heads to toes, I can try to upload them to a higher res image site if that helps.

Oops. I need to look at the top of the thread. Be right back.
You guys have some of the same species as we have? They kind of look like sickly white spruce. But I don't know if such things are available in South America.

 

[barrosinc]

they were sold as piceas, and they must be like 10 years old (estimating from the bark)... so I was thinking dwarf tree. A short googling effort makes me think that white spruce doesn't match.

Piceas are scarce here... but I have seen some picea abies, and picea pungens on websites of nurseries.

 

[barrosinc]

Do I have to start thinking of positioning for when these go in a single pot? Because it will be hard to get them close together without going drastic now on the side that will be close to the other trees.
I touched the soil and it seems really spongy and by the looks of it, these have a lot of feeder roots at least at the top level.
By the color of the needles, do these look to have had too much water, too little water, rootbound, water clogged, lacking fertilizer (they are in organic nursery soil)??

 

[barrosinc]

so the varieties I have found on internet sites are: pungens, picea abies, omorika, excelsa... do any of those fight???
by the color of the needles, would Iron Sulfate do a difference?,do these look to have had too much water, too little water, rootbound, water clogged, lacking fertilizer (they are in organic nursery soil)??

 

[barrosinc]

did half bare repot to almost full bare repot on all of these... the roots, amount of weed roots and mud were really bad. These did not have much roots at all!
I am misting these trees and giving them superthrive twice weekly via roots and foliar, promptly rhizotonic when it arrives. These have to survive!!!

One of them has no winter buds. That makes me think that it is super weak. I had to repot these or they would have had a really tough season (just guessing from the bad state of roots and lack of buds).

I'm sorta getting used to talking to myself ahhaha

 

[sorce]

I'm sorta getting used to talking to myself ahhaha

More pictures!

I would start thinking about the arrangement.

Far as health........

No clue!

Mine is just ok now.

Sorce

 

[Potawatomi13]

here is a picture with my hand for scale.
View attachment 101109

any idea of the variety?

Should be very frustrating not getting variety name from seller. Ask them for better info? Look much like dwarf spruce some on here say are no good for Bonsai(dwarf alberta?). Whatever they may be best of fortune with endeavor.

 

[barrosinc]

I went to another nursery and found (what I believe to be) the same spruces, he labelled them as oriental spruce.
I hard a hard time finding bonsai's of this species in google.

They are still alive but have not shown signs of spring yet.