Hello All!
Had the opportunity to do a workshop with Jim Doyle of Nature’s Way Nursrery and Chase Rosade about a week ago. I picked up this spruce from Jims nursery and was able to do some initial work during the workshop and final details at home. Looking for opinions from this group on further design considerations. I plan on reducing some of the foliage once it recovers especially in the middle section. Still undecided on the deadwood and how to treat it… leave the bark or remove. The main trunk is a little vertical so I will probably adjust the planting angle a bit. (Drew in what the base of the tree looks like since it’s hidden from the pot.). What do you think?
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HiDoug, it looks really good and will develop into a fine tree. You should remove the bark from the deadwood and use lime sulphur to whiten it. The bark naturally falls off when branches are dead and old.
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Actually, I think the before picture had the most merit with the ramrod straight trunk off kilter. Any way you cut it, going dead straight 1/2 way up the tree, and then introducing all of this movement shows a confused picture. Certainly just my opinion though. Leave all of the foliage if you plan on repotting. Peel off the bark sooner rather than later on the deadwood.
I agree. I got caught up in the branch layout and lost sight of the trunk line. I began removing the bark on the deadwood. Not easy! Thanks for the feedback.
I can’t believe you destroyed that great second trunk!
To be clear WLKeugene, nature destroyed that second trunk, not me… 
Now its my job to make it part of the composition.
From the first picture it seemed it was a living branch/trunk with foliage. Sorry if I was in error.
