Norway Spruce ‘Acrocona’

[rutulus]

I purchased and styled this acrocona cultivar of Norway spruce. I’m extremely new to styling, my exposure to bonsai so far is trying to grow pre bonsai material as well as trying to collect and keep alive native pines.

There are no native spruces in my part of the US, but I’ve always admired their form.

I couldn’t find anyone talking about this cultivar for bonsai online. But I really liked its irregular growth and the fact that it already had some mature looking bark. One downside that I think it has are the robust needles. They’re huge relative to the needles on a red spruce and an oriental spruce that I have. I don’t know if spruce needles reduce. I sure hope so.

This cultivar is named because of its tendency to produce cones directly attached to the lead stem in its new growth, even at just a few years old. It had a few attached already. If there is a branch with a main shoot and two side shoots, you can tell immediately where the main shoot grew a cone: the main shoot is huge relative to the side shoots and terminates flatly without a bud. It looks like no bud grows after the cone matures and drops. New growth is from buds that develop further back along the shoot and from the side shoots. In my first photo, the branch at lower left is an example of a branch that once hosted a cone. I’m not cutting it because I’m hoping it will still develop usable buds further back.

I don’t have any before photos, but this tree had leggy, droopy, irregular growth. My wife commented that it looked like a shaggy dog.

My design concept is a tree damaged by winter storms. It already had a rightward flow and I leaned into that. Because it already had such dramatic movement—and because I wanted to jump into styling it—I did not bother to uncover the base. Because I’m imitating a yamadori I don’t know how significant the base will be in the design. I do plan to change the planting angle, but I have years before that’s an issue.



The board is to change the angle slightly more upright. It was at an almost 90 degree angle that I thought looked boring. I put a screw into the trunk to rest on the board, because I didn’t want the trunk to get marked up with an ugly flat line from contacting the 2x4.



Some different angles to give a better sense of its growth as well as the bark.







I don’t plan to touch it for another year, except maybe to dig very lightly around the base to discover the shape of the rootball. I would love to receive any comments, criticisms, or recommendations anyone can offer me. Design and wiring both.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Nice find!

My comments on spruce in general:
- Do not wire in summer, they will act up about it. Do not remove wire in summer or they will act up. Summer is for watering, only.
- Do not prune more than 60% of the foliage in one go, or it will either die or delay by ten years. Two insults per year are OK, but they should be separated by a whole active season.
- Keep the weak shoots close to the trunk, because in a year or so they will be strong shoots and they can and will back bud on old wood if there's growth in close vicinity. I've built entire branches from single branchlets that started as a bud three years ago.

My criticism on your tree is mostly timing. I see some broken branches that might heal, but might as well give up due to the timing of your work. Do not try to bend those branches back, as they'll snap on the opposing side. Spruces can heal pretty large gaps if left alone for a couple years. Mine covered an inch in three years time.
The wire is functional, not pretty, but functional. I like my wires functional! Although, I would clip off any excess wires so they don't snag you. Also, the looping wires that hold branches indicate that the wires on said branches are not functional. For now, I would not rewire or remove any structural wires.

You went bold with this tree, I have to give that to you. But I find it difficult to see where the design is supposed to go. In the future, I want to suggest you wire the plant entirely first. And then decide on what to remove. It will cost you more wire, more effort and more gruntwork and you will remove maybe half of that work in the same session but it will not be obsolete work or wasted time, instead it'll lay the plant out for you and save you time and wire in the long run. Then once it's wired, clip your way from the outside inwards, leaving all the interior growth. This goes against any professional that FORGETS TO ADD NUANCE to instructions.. I know. But they suck for not making it extra super duper clear in their videos - honestly, it's like starting algebra without making sure your audience knows what addition and subtraction are. They do this all the time on youtube and I am calling Bjorn and Ryan out for this.. Bjorn has been improving but Ryan, dude.. Come on.
This 'wire first, clip later' approach does two things: it opens up design options that you wouldn't have seen otherwise, and it allows you to go back and try again without making sacrifices initially. It also wouldn't weaken the plant immediately, so if you set it in a certain shape, it will bounce back faster and "set" that shape in a smaller timeframe. More growth is more wood added, is faster structural setting. This allows you to get results faster. In most cases, you can even not clip anything at all and let the plant grow into a certain shape from which you have an easier starting point.

If I can be a straight shooter, pardon me, I'd say this plant will probably not make it. But it's clear that you've spent quite some time on it and I appreciate you for posting it.
Don't give up! You learned a lot of handiwork - you might not realize this but your brain is processing and storing that data - and you can now see how spruces respond to heavy work.
Now let it recover for a year. I hope it does well for you and produces plenty of back buds. Norway spruce tends to do that, but only if the foliage is allowed to grow and expand for a while. That would be your next summer. Leave it untouched until the end of 2026. But also, since there's so little foliage and a couple snapped branches, on top of the timing being finicky, a more realistic timeframe would be 2031 before the next iteration can take place.

 

[rutulus]

Thank you for your advice and perspective. I truly appreciate you giving me the benefit of your experience and your time in sharing it.

I’ve read that spruce can be styled in late summer, but based on your advice I won’t be doing this again. Would you style (assuming good tree health) in early spring?

Most of the growth on this tree was far away from the trunk that remains here—as in several feet away. Once I’d trimmed that away, knowing it would be useless, I knew I was in over my head.

I will use your wire first, prune later approach the next time I butcher a tree. I can already see the benefits.

Based on your advice, I also think I should be leaving more of that foliage to speed recovery and then get rid of it down the road when the foliage closer to the trunk gets strength. Should I leave it so long as it isn’t shading interior growth or causing swelling where I know I don’t want it? I already intended to remove some of this foliage down the road. There was so little close to the trunk that I left all that I could to help with recovery. Too bad it may not be enough!

Thank you for your directness. I need it to learn. I don’t want to repeat stupid mistakes because someone was too polite to correct me. I appreciate it. I don’t have a background or much experience with horticulture or visual arts. But I thought I wont learn unless I jump in with both feet

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

I style my spruces in the dead of winter, since they're snowload adapted trees, they tend to bend better and recover better if I use that feat.

You can leave more foliage even if it shades out other growth, in the case of spruces we're talking years before shade becomes a problem. Having large extending branches feed the small ones is a good practice, sometimes called sacrifice branching. If you can wire it in a way that it doesn't shade out anything, that would be better though.

Thanks for taking my critique like a champ. Keep in mind there's no harm in getting more plants if your hands get itchy; this plant will be on a 'just watering' schedule for a while. Getting a couple cheap junipers or high maintenance plants like elm would keep you busy while this one recovers.