Pruning My Bird’s Nest Spruce
Hi everyone nigel saunders here it is a beautiful day today and i’ve been working on the ibc the intermediate bulk containers i got out the hose today gave them a good thorough rinsing out so these contained a uh it was a fungicide additive to cattle feed so it you dilute it and then you add it to cattle feed and it helps stop the food getting moldy so yeah it’s water soluble so rinsed out really nicely i uh test fit fitted one in the corner over here it’s not on blocks or anything yet but it fits in there perfectly if you see there’s the side of the room it just fits in here beautifully so these troughs will come down fill it up that’ll be awesome so i’m going to put two side by side until i get the greenhouse built and then i’ll move one to the greenhouse yeah so that’s rinse out now the valve down below here it’s not the greatest valve in the world it’s just meant to kind of turn on and off so you can buy hose fittings that screw in here and then you can put an adapter on to you know adapt it to a garden hose or whatever you want so i’ll do something like that and i’m going to put this up on blocks probably i’ll probably buy some cement blocks for it um these things are really heavy when they’re full of water they’re a thousand liters so yeah they’ll be heavy um so yeah lots of work to go but a really good start today my wife took her tank out of the cage so it’s just sitting here loose and she’d give it a good thorough cleaning out with you know soap right there and water gave it a good swished it all around turned the tank upside down made sure she got all surfaces cleaned out so it is nice and clean in there now good way to look around with the camera yeah so you can see the opening down there where the valve is out front here yeah so that’s she’s just making her area ready for hers and that’ll be cool in the bonsai area over here there’s still ice and snow on the on the ground but i gave all the trees a nice watering today the soil was frozen this morning but then it thawed became really warm this afternoon so yeah everything’s looking good i checked over all the buds everything’s looking pretty good my largest need another pruning i was going i was looking at them i think i just gave them like a rough pruning and fall and yeah they really need it again i miss taking some lichen off some of these branches so i’ve got to do that the trees that are in the greenhouse i think we’re above freezing for at least i think a week so all these trees in the greenhouse can be moved out to the benches and i’ll get the greenhouse ready i’ll clean it all out and get it ready for the tropical trees which will be going in the greenhouse at the end of this month so they’re going to go in for april may june july august september october how many months is that i didn’t count let me try it again april may june july august september october that’s seven months seven months out of the 12 months of the year so that’s pretty good that’s that’s not bad for tropical trees to be outside the bench on this side is getting sunlight now the sun is high enough in the sky that it’s lighting up these benches now and you can see the buds swelling on this maple here they are getting really big this is a norway maple and the top kept dying back and you can see this top died back you can see this leader branch died back i just couldn’t win with this one so i’m just letting it grow i’m not going to touch it i’ve got a really strong branch here i’ve got a really really strong branch off to the side here which will be the new leader and so that one’s dead the top’s dead i don’t know i just didn’t want to grow vertical this tree so the manitoba maples are doing really well you can see the buds swelling on those now there’s a lot of dead sections in these trees they were collected from the front garden they just kind of barely survived the collection um in the front garden a lot of it died back you can see that whole top’s dead but i’ll try and grow the living portions that are left the red maple here doing really well and again this whole top on it died back i had it kind of pruned off flush here and didn’t like that for some reason so hopefully these new branches i’ll just let those grow and hopefully it’ll kind of repair itself at the top and apple tree’s doing well yeah so exciting times ahead i didn’t prune this spruce at all last year my bird’s nest spruce the growth came in really nicely but now you can see it needs pruning it’s really thick all this new growth need some thinning get the apex defined maybe we’ll do that on today’s video i won’t do it tonight but tomorrow i’ll tackle this project getting that bird’s nest spruce all pruned up i’m going to phone and get the truck insurance back on it so i’m hoping to get it on the road for monday i uh i’ve got a lot of stuff garbage i’ve got a lot of stuff i got to get rid of car parts got to take all those to the scrap yard so i’m going to put the truck back to work i definitely need it on the road quite quickly also for monday i’m going to try and call someone to get east trough put up here i can always do it myself but um to get that length of each trough in one piece they need to kind of bend it on the site here because you can’t transport ease trough that long and just like crumple and you can buy these trough but you’d have to join it in sections and it’s always nice to have a one piece so i’m gonna try and call someone to put a nice trough up there all right i’m going to clean up my tools and my mess here and tomorrow we’ll get to work on the bird’s nest spruce maybe even the larch it is the next day and i’m ready to start working on the bird’s nest spruce pruning it up for spring i’m looking at the spruce from the front just kind of getting some ideas here so some of the branches are lifting a bit they’re kind of coming up at the tips so there’s some shoots that are pointing more downward that i’ll prune them back to uh i kind of like the rounded crown up here but it’s starting to get a little empty in the top so i think i need to prune that back a bit uh clean up some of the the branches they’re just starting to become a big green blob up here so i want to keep some separation in my branches i’m going to start by pruning up this extending branch here the longest branch getting it kind of so it’s not sweeping up the tips yeah just trimming that up first so i’ve got two downward pointing shoots right here so i can definitely prune this tip off like that i can prune my upward growth off here like that little more upward growth here i can prune off just a little branch tip up here i’ve got a shoot sticking straight up that needs to be removed that and there’s another one here coming from the top of the branch sticking straight up needs to be removed off it goes there’s one at the back here i have a more horizontal shoot so i’m going to take the one that’s going upwards off like that so that kind of flattens the top of the branch now i’ve got to do a little bit of pruning to get the rest of it in check make sure there’s no overlapping branches there’s one here that’s pointing upwards i can shorten that to there there’s one here kind of growing towards the inside of the tree i can remove that one so i’ll do that there’s another one at the bottom kind of coming straight towards you [Music] there’s a there’s quite a thick branch here kind of coming straight towards you and i’m just wondering should i remove that whole branch [Music] it will give me a little flatter of a branch here so it’s not a little sep more separation between the back branch and this one i think i will i’m going to take it back i’m going to leave a bit of a stub i can always clean that up later so here i go this is a fairly big cut like that gone [Applause] yeah you can see a lot more of the branch structure now i may even there’s another one up top here i can prune off getting rid of some of this upward growth trying to flatten that branch out a bit more there’s two branches here i’ll show you a view from the top they’re kind of converging a bit so i think the one needs to be pruned away here’s a look i’ve got two branches coming from this branch and they’re kind of running parallel this one’s the longer one and see how it’s interfering with this branch these are too crowded together so i need to clean that up a bit so i got to decide which one of these branches do i want to keep and that is a good question i think i think i need to get rid of that long one because it interferes with this branch beside it here it’s just too congested in that area so that is going to come off and i’ll leave a bit of a stop there or another branch like that so that cleans this area up nicely there’s a chute growing up vertically here i can take off clean this up a bit more so let’s clean that up now this branch up top here is kind of getting too long and it’s shading out the branch below so this needs to be pruned back so this branch it looks like i can shorten it i have some growth back further so i’ll definitely take this tip off i can prune the one up here we’ll turn it off shorter see what happens it looks good and healthy so usually if you prune a healthy tip off it’ll get some buds forming on there not always but so there’s some buds here so i can prune this one back a bit this one it’s got some good divisions back here so off comes the tip that it’s a little more light to this branch not a whole lot but a little more i’ll take that back even further like that all right gets a lot more light to that lower branch this shoots sticking straight up here i can take off now up in the apex here i want to shorten it it’s getting too too long so here’s a branch i have a division back here and a division up here i could prune it off shorter which i think i better off it goes all right this one’s sticking straight up it comes off there’s a strange crossing branch in here i’m going to shorten it’s kind of shaded out it probably won’t survive anyway but now in the apex i’m still looking to make it more compact if possible take this middle shoot out here it’s kind of dead anyway and i think i’ll i think i’d better shorten this one two shoots back here just checking everything over i gotta make sure got a lot of strong growth in this branch this branch there’s a branch up here and then there’s a thicker one below it it’s kind of a crossing branch here i’ll get rid of that didn’t have a nice flow line now let’s have a look i think this one kind of pointing upwards here i can get rid of that i can get rid of the tip here like that maybe even shorten that more i think i will back to here like that all right here’s a look at the tree now so you can see because i shortened this a bit it looks a little too symmetrical so i’ll probably need to shorten some of the branches on this side there’s a chute going straight up here i can take off another one here going straight up [Music] all right i’ll shorten this one a bit more nice noisy day in the neighborhood today there’s one here kind of growing back in towards the tree take that one off i’ve got two branches parallel here this is a thicker one and it’s growing more vertical [Music] [Applause] i’ve got to decide what i’m going to keep it’s a nice branch i think i’m going to take this one off [Music] like that that keeps it more compact so just stuff i can clean up here vertical shoot here another vertical shoot in here i can remove let’s get a bit more branch separation take a branch off in here [Applause] another one here that’s kind of crossing i’m going to take that off and then i’m going to take this tip off here like that i could take this one off but i don’t know i might want something coming out the front eventually in the apex shoot growing up vertically here there’s a big hanging branch in here i need a bit of separation in here i got a lot of hanging branches which just doesn’t look good so i’m going to take that off like that there’s a vertical shoot here i can take off [Music] like that i’m back up here in the top view just checking out my branches i got some overlapping branches down here i think i want to remove this one coming across this other branch got to think of the origin of the branch and keep the flow lines radiating out you don’t want it radiating out and then turning 90 degrees and crossing other branches so now there’s a this whole top is sticking up and i think i can prune that off so i’m going to do that at least i’ll at least prune this part for now and then this branch will grow gain strength and then i can take these ones off later i could even do it now i guess i should do it now there that gets lots of light to this branch so it’ll do well another weird hanging branch here it’s just too hanging down too far so i’ll remove that this branch is also growing on the top of this other branch so i’m going to take that off like that that cleans that up nicely i’m going to take this one back i’ve got two good divisions here so i’ll take this one right off like that and i’ve got three here so i can take the thicker one off and keep that finer tip so i’ll do that like that there’s a branch coming out here that’s interfering with the branch beside it so i’ll take that back there’s one growing from the inside corner back here interfering with this branch i’m going to take that off like that cleans that area up nicely now i’m looking at the back of the tree here i can take this one back there’s a division here so i can take this branch back like that there’s a shoot sticking up here i can remove this one has a nice branch in the bottom here i think i’ll take this take this one back and this one should be removed also there’s some buds back there so i’ll take the tip off shortening it this one i’ll take the tip off also because i have some buds back here it’s a bit of a dead stump here i can cut back this one i can take the tip off this one’s getting very long some buds back there i don’t know if there’s just maybe some buds in here [Music] better not chance that well i made a lot of progress today i think this one i’m going to reduce that this branch is going to be taken back to here okay let’s look from the front view again i’m looking at the tree from the front view now and i’m liking this lower branch here it’s really getting some good development on it i think this branch above it needs shortening that looks much better on this side i’m getting a bit of interference this branch is kind of hanging down to the lower one i don’t know i’ve got a lot of interference in that area i did talk about removing this front branch it’s kind of a strange branch kind of crosses the trunk line but it sure is nice having something there if that were removed the trunk line would look quite bare so i think i need something there to fill that in a bit and just so you can’t see the whole trunk line all the way up to the apex yeah so i don’t know i there’s a lot of behind the trunk here there’s a lot of hanging branches i might be able to clean those out i do on this side i have two branches growing from one spot i think i need to remove that lower one it’s kind of growing from the inside of a a bend and keep the upper one so you know on a tree you want your lowest branches to be kind of drooping and your mid branches get more horizontal and as you get to the apex you want them more more and more vertical so i think i’ll take that horizontal one off and now you can see there’s another horizontal one behind it let me look at that i think i’ll take that one off also and just keep my branches sweeping upwards yep okay here i go like that [Music] how does that look now well i like that it gives a lot more definition to the branches it really makes the other the right hand side look more cluttered now i think i’ve gotta remove something in this area here yeah i hate to do it but i think that whole middle branch has to be removed it’s a nice branch really nicely developed but it’s just too too close to the branch below this makes that area look cluttered you can’t see any branch structure i am going to miss a bit of foliage oh no no that’s okay i was gonna say i was gonna lose all that foliage out front but there is some coming forward so on the other branch all right let’s do it well that looks better i think definitely see a bit more of the structure maybe i’ll have to clean out some of the branches behind it now i think that’s a big step ahead for the tree i think it looks more spruce-like too [Music] i think i’m going to stop there for today when the new growth comes in i’ll give it i’ll pinch it maybe we’ll get some back budding depending how vigorous it is this year [Music] [Music] that is all for today i’m nigel saunders thanks for joining me in the bonsai zone
