A regular update on the life and times of John Hanby’s Newstead Bonsai Centre……..
Topical Times – Pices Abies first pruning
At this time of year when it’s often too cold to do repotting we have to resort to pruning and wiring work.
This Picea is a dwarf variety, possibly “Little Gem”, and having due regard to the diameter of the trunk at the base it is certainly an old little tree.
It is surprising just how much difference a bit of cleaning out and pruning can make even without any wiring/styling.
It’s a case of cutting out all the dead/weak branches and exposing more of the trunk.
Some soil was also removed to expose a stronger more powerful base with surface roots.
You can see almost immediately that this nursery stock tree has excellent potential to make a good shohin or chuhin bonsai.
It can now be allowed to grow strongly so that during the season we can encourage more tighter growth nearer the 
trunk enabling us to then prune back the longer shoots to make a more compact tree. You can see in the final picture that there is already an abundance of new shoots and buds inside the tree.
Ultimately it will be a case of making another selection of branches and then a combination of wiring and/or pruning to guide the tree towards a desirable finished image…….having said all that it is quite a pleasant tree to look at already!