Need advice on trunk line selection

kestutisg

Hello all

Here is my Picea abies sp. Nidiformis (so called “nest spruce”), which I bought recently in a nursery. The trunk is about 2" at the base.

It is quite a new experience for me since so far I hadn’t styled a spruce and this is the most expensive and complex material, which I will style by myself so far.

Needless to say I would like to avoid making some wrong decisions, which would result in the tree being a lesser bonsai than it could have. Given my limited experience, this seems like quite a good tree to me, but then again I may be wrong :-)

So I gave the tree an initial clean up and came up with 6 trunk options, with which I could possibly proceed.

As you can see from the jins in the first picture I got rid of 4 of the candidates (the major reasons were that they were too thin, lacked taper and suitable branches or the foliage was way far from the trunk line).

However this still leaves me with 2 trunks.


- Trunk option 1 – the branch with smaller caliper (left)

- Trunk option 2 – the one with the larger caliper (right)



Since I’m on a holiday it’s been some 3 days that I’m thinking about this spruce and I’m starting to feel I need some advice from more experienced people since my holiday will also have an end to it :-)



Below are some of my own thoughts regarding pros and cons of each trunk and also some very rough virtual layouts (made with MS Paint, sorry for the poor quality).



The problem seems that both trunk options look doable and good (to me), so I would appreciate your thoughts and advice very much so I pick the better of them both.



Also a technical question – do you wire and shape the spruce just as a pine, i.e. with little bunches of needles at ends of branches, which are arranged into pads? I read that the only chance to force a spruce to back bud is to leave the needles on the whole length of the branches, but that make wiring a pain, doesn’t it? Any tips would be much appreciated.



Trunk 1



▪ Pros

o Looks more bushy with more branches (provides more options for branch placement, perhaps will look like a finished tree sooner)

o Is thinner than option 2 (can be bent more easily)

o Don’t know if it is a plus or minus, but this trunk has quite a thick branch, almost as thick as the trunk about an 1.5 inch higher than the jin (this branch is not seen in the photo); this branch could be used as the main branch for the shakkan/slanting style (provided I can bend it ~150 degrees w/out breaking :-) )

▪ Cons

o The trunk line is rather boring and a bend could possibly be introduced only at some 1.5-2 inches after the jin

o The branch lacks dramatic taper after the split of the 2 trunks



Trunk 2



▪ Pros

o Has some thicker branches (enough for the main branches) and enough young branches that could develop with more time

o Trunk line has a gentle bend at the split of the 2 trunks

▪ Cons

o The middle section is somewhat straight and would be difficult to bend in case more dramatic movement would be desired



Some designs hat I could think of (see attachments)



w/ trunk 1



1. Shakkan. Looks nice (to me)



2. Shakkan w/ jinned top. Looks even nicer



w/ trunk 2



1. Moyogi w/ top slightly to the left. Looks nice, a bit longish

2. Moyogi w/ jinned top (lightning struck), which later could be run down the trunk as a shari. New apex in this case is made of the small branch which is pointing upward in the original photo. A risk in this case probably would be that there would be too few branches to make the design. However, the tree is lower and looks older (to me)

Aaaarghh… now I want to do both – the shakkan w/ jinned apex and the moyogi w/ jinned apex. Anyone heard of any method to clone trees? :-D



Thanks for your help in advance

Attached Images

	Picea - trunk options 1 and 2.JPG (48.9 KB, 195 views)
	Picea - with trunk 1 - shakkan1.JPG (49.0 KB, 28 views)
	Picea - with trunk 1 - shakkan2 - with jinned top.JPG (44.1 KB, 21 views)
	Picea - with trunk 2 - moyogi2.JPG (43.2 KB, 33 views)
	Picea - with trunk 2 - moyogi3 - with jinned top.JPG (38.0 KB, 30 views)

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rutledge

You might try this, since the primary branch is on the right, the apex should probably be there, too.

Kind regards,
Andy

Attached Images

Picea.jpg (27.9 KB, 59 views)

kestutisg

Thanks, Rutledge, it's an awesome virtual, !

However, I had planned to cut off the lowest branch on the right, as it is too low (IMHO) and I'm keeping it for now as a sacrifice branch. Would just removing the branch be OK with the design proposed by you or would I need to rearrange the other branches?

pootsie

I think Andy's virt is a great way to go.

pootsie

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bwaynef

I think the trunk of this tree deserves to be upright. The slant option you depict shows a bend to develop the slant rather straight from the ground. For some reason that bothers me.

Andy's idea is a good one. I'd suggest, if you choose to head that route, try to keep the lowest branch and develop it well. If later you decide you don't like it you can remove it. It looks pretty good as depicted to me though.

WF

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midwestbonsai

I would have to agree.
Andy's idea is IMHO the best way to go.

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kestutisg

Oookay

Seems that the jury has spoken. Thank you all for giving the tree a thought. And "Rutledge" is THE Andy Rutledge (which I suspected he was, but didn't dare to hope), whose many articles and the "Artictic foundations of bonsai design" I've just recently read??


I'm into bonsai some 2 months, so now I'm sucking in information like a black hole , so having a virtual made for my tree by Andy himself is a very humbling and at the same time enormously encouraging experience to me.

And I completely agree with your point bwaynef - if I don't like the branch, I can chop it off later. Actually, I've been to a workshop with Jurgen Zaar like a month ago and he was so confident about hacking off everything not needed that I'm still very chop-happy, which probably I shouldn't be too much of


By the way - related question on spruces. I've read that spruces are back budding veeeery reluctantly, one should not remove the needles from the portion of the trunk where back buds are desired - from your experience - does thathelp? because they'd be quite a nuissance in wiring, and also you cannot apply raffia in that place...

rutledge

Kestutisg (?),

Ha! Don't get too humbled, I'm just one of the people here with an opinion and mine don't always get supported like this. ;-) But I'm glad you find it encouraging.

Surely there are plenty of ways to approach the styling of this material. I've suggested something that is more of a close-up view, while your initial virtuals were of a more far view for a tall tree. They're different and require a different approach to which branches to keep.

Also, don't discount Jurgen's opinion. He's an excellent artist and he knows this species far better than I. Surely he's got specific reasons for his suggestions to you. There are likely several "valid" futures for this material, each with a specific view/ideal/aim in mind. Pick the one you will enjoy the most (with health/species guidance from someone in your area, like Jurgen).

Kind regards,
Andy