Dwarf Alberta spruce soil type

[YaBoyMyth]

So I just purchased a dwarf Alberta spruce from eastern leaf in chino Ca. Pretty excited, but upon further reading realized that it’s not the best tree for bonsai and many beginners like myself make this mistake lol. Still going to try and do something with it tho! Will learn from it. My question is what type of soil or substrate should I use for these? I have a lot of boon mix left from other reports earlier this year. The soil it came in looks like it’s organic soil.

 

[YaBoyMyth]

Bump

 

[Forsoothe!]

They are forgiving as to media. They are not for those with short-term horizons even though at first glance it looks like they would transition PDQ. They are not close to bonsai even if the overall size seems close because the foliage is at the ends of twiggy branches and when you make space for the birdies to fly through you see the ugly truth. If you have an open ended time horizon it's a different story, as told here...

 

[Colorado]

Boon mix will work well. Even better, if you have a little extra akadama to mix in there so it’s more like 3:1:1 akadama:lava: pumice is my ideal mix for spruce.

I think dwarf Alberta spruce are better bonsai subjects than many give credit for! Good luck!

 

[YaBoyMyth]

They are forgiving as to media. They are not for those with short-term horizons even though at first glance it looks like they would transition PDQ. They are not close to bonsai even if the overall size seems close because the foliage is at the ends of twiggy branches and when you make space for the birdies to fly through you see the ugly truth. If you have an open ended time horizon it's a different story, as told here...

Yes I definitely have long term horizons. Going to focus on this one and once I learn how to take care of it I’m going to make a forest. Any tips? Yours looks awesome dude

 

[Forsoothe!]

You need to wire with heavier than normal wire in looses loops so it can stay in place for two years without marking. Leave it in the original nursery pot until it recovers from your first hard trim back to very little foliage, having removed >50% of branches.

 

[YaBoyMyth]

You need to wire with heavier than normal wire in looses loops so it can stay in place for two years without marking. Leave it in the original nursery pot until it recovers from your first hard trim back to very little foliage, having removed >50% of branches.

How did you promote so much back bud? Heard these are hard to get to back bud

 

[Forsoothe!]

Removing the end whenever there are visible buds further back on the twig, this time of year.

 

[YaBoyMyth]

Removing the end whenever there are visible buds further back on the twig, this time of year.

Any chance you have pictures of buds on yours? I’m not seeing any on mine. When do you usually wire and prune heavily? Around now as well?

 

[Forsoothe!]

The tiny brown pointy buds along the twigs interspersed among the needles... millions of them