AusBonsai

Just finished styling this English Spruce, didn't take a before photo unfortunately.

Another problem is a bit of inverse taper on the lower part of the trunk.

Hi Nick,
A very nice initial styling.
The reverse taper is a problem and needs to improve if possible. One method you could try would be to tightly wire this section and allow the wire to cut in. Ugly wire scars usually swell and cause some thickening but can take years to heal.

The current apex moves in the opposite direction to the tail, in future with more growth and refinement, I think you should aim for something like this

perhaps a tourniquet layer technique at the fattest trunk area-

I really like your initial styling, tho if it were mine I would be planting it in the ground or a bigger pot, they are painfully slow growing in pots, many are very slow growing even in the ground.

The reverse taper is an issue and is a common occurance on grafted varieties. If you can find the label to know the exact species it is, someone here should be able to help with information about how it performs on its own roots. Most conifers and many other trees are grafted, for convenience factor of producing a commercial quantity of consistent product in a reasonable time frame.

Citrus are a good example, until recent years you could only ever buy grafted citrus, they have now started to realise that many are better off being grown on there own roots. Mainly those that produced exactly this sort of inverse taper, eg Tahitian lime & Meyer lemon being the 2 I think of off hand.

Matt

Took your advice Gerard and switch the apex around

Hi Nick,
Taking gerards advice was a good move and the tree looks much better now. That inverse taper is a real problem though! Scaring the bark a little either by light vertical cuts with a knife or brusing it with the tip of a nail in a checker board fashion can help it to swell with out the long term scaring wire may result in.

Looks like a bad graft to me. I would be layering it before spending to much more time styling. If you cant fix it then it will never be a good tree. The bridging layer would be the perfect candidate for this tree. There are many good threads on this site on layering.