leave them be ... they will grow together ... to make a solid wall ... the branches facing each other.. will.. as you think.. brown and thin.. as they lose sun ... who cares .. they will be interior ... all facets.. facing out.. to the sun .. will grow without losing needles ... you trim up becasue you wnat the space under.. not for losing branches ... you are having a problem 'seeing' the difference between forest trees .. and individual specimens ... and i cant think of a way of googling that to show you ... all conifers shed needles in 1 to 3 years ... and off hand.. i am thinking this one holds for 3 years .... correct me if i am wrong ... but come.. 20 or 30 years down the line.. if you were to crawl inside. and stand near a trunk.. they will be all nudie inside.. that is what happens.. when the interiors get shaded ... now... listen careful ... if you want to move them.. crikey man.. focus.. MOVE EVERY OTHER ONE... lol ..... and space them 30 feet apart..; and leave half undisturbed .... and even that isnt going to be enough ... thats only 15 feet for each tree from center ... but even still... i have one that came with my house .... and i will guess its about 20 years old.. and its already past the 30 feet wide ... its the nature of the beast ... sounds like you have plenty of space.. move on to some new project.... you are investing way to much thought into this project ... ken ps: or you could harvest every other one.. over the years... for xmas trees... if you learn how to shear them to that shape ... hey.. work smart.. not hard... lol ...

Pinetree30: You suggest that late setting winter buds, or growth extensions of the original shoots that continue for longer, are more likely to have frost kill the terminal bud. Well, that doesnt fit with any observations I have made. In fact, the growth of the Norway spruce shoots on my timberland in the mountains of western MD continues, most years, into August, and I see less terminal bud failure there than I see here in Winchester, VA, where the shoot extension of Norway spruce is generally finished by early July. And the winters are much, much more harsh in the MD mountains, with temps of 15 below happening fairly often, and an all time low of minus 40 has been recorded. The growth of the terminal shoots in Western MD is generally somewhat more than I generally see in Winchester. In addition, the spruce that had the free growth last year--about a dozen had substantial free growth that began after the initial shoot elongated--set their winter buds much later than the other spruces that simply elongated their original shoots in the usual manner. One, the one that had total growth of close to four feet, did not stop that growth and set any visible terminal but until early September. All the spruce that had the free growth and set winter buds late, had their terminal buds grow just fine this year, and the extent of the growth was about the same as the other young Norway spruce. And as for the spruce pictured in this topic here. I have seen this literally hundreds of times--spruce tops that look exactly like this. At about this time of year, depending on the location, one or more of these will start to turn upward. Usually more than one will begin to turn upward, but one will usually be clearly more erect and by this time in another year, will be a clearly dominant leader. Anderson: Please take a picture or two in a few weeks and post so we can all see them. At that time there will be one or more of the side shoots more or less erect, but it will still have a curve in it. Then take another picture at the end of September, or later. At this point it should be even more erect and have less curve. Finally, after the shoots have elongated next year--say by the middle of August--take another picture for us. At that point the new leader should be nearly "ramrod straight." We have had discussions about Norway spruce re-establishing a lost leader several times, but usually not with pictures like you have given us, and never with any follow-up pictures. Oh, pinetree: You say I "attribute" the long shoots to free growth. I posted a topic about this a few months ago--and yes, finally, with pictures. I will re-post in that topic in a month or two, with a new picture or two, and you can see them and judge for yourself what was happening--whether it looks to you like free growth or not. If the pictures I have posted are not enough, I actually took quite a few and can post some more from last year. But most of the long shoots I see on Norway spruce--those of 30 to 36 inches or more--are not the result of free growth. I have observed occasional free growth for years, but it is rather unusual. This last year those I observed in my planted spruce here in Winchester were the nmost "dramatic" I have seen. But the 12 or so that had substantial free growth--averaging about 10 inches or so per tree, were out of about 350 I have planted here. There were a number of others that had additional small extra shoots, both on the leader and on side branches, but I have not counted those. --spruce

Ved, if as you say, this tree is three inches in height, you simply want any growth, period. It's uh, a little early to be worrying about the tree's structure. Just let it be, see what happens, and learn something. If it dies, go to any one of a bunch of good online seedling nurseries and get a few more, for 26 cents a copy or whatever they cost! I've grown lots of this tree-a great grower, possessed of a little extra oomph somehow, me and a few other weirdos happen to think! We had tons of rabbits this year too-seems to be a region-wide or even nation-wide thing that's going on. Personally, as a grower of many things, I was satisfied with the lower number of rabbits!

Here's a bit of that scenery from that part of SW Ireland. https://www.google.com/search?q=lough+leane&complete=&tbm=isch So the low mountains, such as they are, have grasses and moorland plants. But they look bare from a distance. In this case the lowlands are a forested park..in other cases I suspect the agricultural land has winter crops that are green. So those two probably account for some of the green you see. My question about the British Isles landscape: what I assume is that after the ice ages and before humans came (back?) most of the UK and Ireland were completely forested. Not some parts like the top of Ben Nevis or the marshes of East Anglia, of course, but most of it. But it's not clear how much land use patterns influence the current state of affairs. Do the hills, moors, and coastal cliff edges not become reforested because nothing can grow on them, or because they are browsed by animals that eat any tree seedlings? If you take the white cliffs of Dover, for example, and moved them to New Jersey or Connecticut haha - they'd soon be covered in some sort of weed trees. Our rampant population of antlered rats would not prevent this. I mean the land behind the cliffs, of course: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Cliffs_of_Dover#/media/File:White_Cliffs_of_Dover_02.JPG Ahh...to live in a tower overlooking the sea ;-). See if anyone gets that reference.