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Colorado Blue Spruce (Picea pungens)

A great native American species for bonsai.

Most colorado blue spruce in bonsai culture are yamadori but this one is in fact a graft (just below the first branch) of a slightly bluer than normal variety onto the species stock. It was once part of someone's collection but it had become horribly rootbound in an equally horrible basin-shaped pot. When I first saw it at New England Bonsai Gardens in 2005, it was in a sorry state but I could instantly see its true potential.

Spruce are tough, and this beauty never skipped a beat when it was heavily wired and root pruned.

Pot: Bryan Albright
Photo: November 2007