Pinching My Spruce Bonsai Trees

I pinch my tiny blue spruce and dwarf Alberta spruce bonsai trees. I share three reasons for pinching bonsai in spring and demonstrate pinching on my blue spruce. Pinching is a technique in which new growth tips are cut while the growth is still young, before it’s hardened off. I’ve never pinched the tips of my dwarf Alberta spruce (I usually only prune once a year in fall), so this is a bit of an experiment to see how the tree responds. I also share some of the young growth on my other conifers (including a bonsai cliff grand fir collected a year ago), and I clean up the understory of my western hemlock.