Sunday, September 9, 2007

The new literati spruce - part 3

In September of 2007, three years and three vegetation periods later it is definitely clear that we can continue serious styling. Spruce have this habit of growing long shoots which are too weak to stay upright. The hang down like lametta off a christma tree. In the forestry industry this is called 'lametta syndrome'and is a sign of poor health. It can only be cured with lots of feed and water and full sunshine. After a couple of years new, stronger shoots come uo clsoer to the trunk. These new shoots can stand upright on their own.
If one uses the lametta branches and wires them the tree can look somehwat fine after styling. But when the wire is taken off a couple of years later the branch falls back down in the lamett- weeping willow way. It will never ever be a useful branch. But there are so many of these! Well, we have to replace them all eventually!
In these three years it turned out that one side of the trunk had dead bark which started to fall off. This is very fine! I enhanced this a bit. This is not dangerous at all for the tree since this side is dead anyway. It looks very recently done and artificial at the moment. Give it five years and it will be great.