In 2008 the tree then looked very good. Then the wire was taken off. It grew very well all these year because of my aggressive watering and feeding scheme combined with modern substrate and full sun all year round. The advantage of this is that one can develop a spruce in about five years while it takes ten years at lest otherwise. But then the growth becomes so dense that in the end there are thick clouds on the tree. Also when the wire gets taken off the branches grow upwards again, ruining the original old look after a couple of years.
Well, the tree was exhibited at BMW World where hundreds of thousands people saw it. But now in 2012 it was just overgrown and ready for the second serious styling. This was a major effort because of the size of the tree. It took me three full days to cut out all unnecessary old growth, to edit the branches, wire the whole thing and place the branches. Now it shines again.
The wire will stay on for three years or even more. Then it will be thinned out again and the tree should be ready for any show.
The big shari line where lightening struck th tree started to almost fully fill again with new callous. I took off the bark of all the new callous. It now looks a bit freshly don. But in a year this will be fine. I ran out of finer wire and may continue refining this tree in a few weeks.
