AusBonsai

Hi,

This is a much neglected group planting of four, they appear healthy although all of them are competing for light and have outgrown their space relative to each other.

The branches at the back which were receiving no sunlight, have lost their needles but are still green under their bark.

Should I trim back to let more light into the group or separate them and revive them individually?

The tallest one will make a nice formal upright as it has a dead straight single trunk so I'm leaning toward separating to maintain maximum branch lengths.









Many thanks.


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I have never seen a group planting of 4 trees before. We usually plant odd numbers of trees.

It would make a great workshop subject, so join a club ( if you haven't already ) and let experienced people help you.

Its a bit blurry Brian but I think I see 5 trees in that pot.

What to do? They definitely need pruning to let light in but may already be too late to recover the group as it is. I assume you realise that cedars are reluctant to produce buds on bare wood so don't cut back past healthy needles.
I think I'd lean toward taking it apart and see what you can do with the trees but always find it difficult to give good advice when I can't really see all of the tree. You may find that the main tree won't be so good for a single tree. It will probably have live branches only on 1 or 2 sides so You'll end up with one side mostly bare which could make it hard to style.

Brian's recommendation of getting personal help is wise. Take it to a club or book into a workshop for detailed, on the spot advice.

For this season I'd recommend pinching all the new shoots before it gets too late and remove any branches that seem to be in the wrong spots. Looks like you should be able to take out about half the branches to let some light in there. Hopefully the remaining branches will respond and shoot some buds.

Sorry you're correct, there are five.

You make a good point about the branching on one side, they all only have good branches on a quarter of their circumference.




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Also they don't appear to be cedars but are Dwarf Alberta Spruce.

Grant

Thanks David, will this affect the plan or will they behave similar to a cedar?

Check this site. Just note that this is a Northern Hemisphere site.
So when they say August being his late summer, that would equate to our February here.

http://www.bonsai4me.com/AdvTech/ATPice ... wiring.htm

Also they don't appear to be cedars but are Dwarf Alberta Spruce.

They did look a bit odd for cedar. Thanks for looking a bit closer Grant.

Change of species will not affect anything I said before. Spruce should behave similar to cedar in respect to pruning, etc.

Thanks for the link Shibui.

I think I will separate them and carefully select any branches that won't be needed and try to promote a little back budding if I can.

I might be conservative with one or two of the larger ones and a bit more aggressive with the other few to see how they respond.

Thanks again everyone.