Bit of a trade off. Fertilizing allowed the few branches to shoot out very long candles with no needles closer to the trunk. So I cut them off above the few needles from last year hoping that I’ll get that ramification closer to the trunk. The long one on top is a sacrificial branch and the new top will be the little one I left alone. Note: the top of the trunk was originally a side branch that I wired upward as a new top after I broke the original top wiring it. The cool thing is that it works ok and because it was a thinner branch it gives the tree better taper than a fatter trunk at the top like the original leader was.
Bit of a trade off. Fertilizing allowed the few branches to shoot out very long candles with no needles closer to the trunk. So I cut them off above the few needles from last year hoping that I’ll get that ramification closer to the trunk. The long one on top is a sacrificial branch and the new top will be the little one I left alone. Note: the top of the trunk was originally a side branch that I wired upward as a new top after I broke the original top wiring it. The cool thing is that it works ok and because it was a thinner branch it gives the tree better taper than a fatter trunk at the top like the original leader was.