There are lots of options. Also what they are will give some limits as to what forms they'll take, given their genetics. If they are obesums and you want really thick, fat caudex and roots, then you may want to take cuttings to graft onto other root stock. If you want tall, stately, elegant trees then you may want to not prune at all or little and just keep potting them up and pushing growth as much as you can the first few years and let them branch naturally. On the other hand, if you want them smaller and easy to move around, you might not want 8 to 12 foot tall obesum trees. Then you may prefer to prune them somewhat lower and encourage lots of branching for more of a shrubby look, or think about bonsai forms for training. I'm looking to do some of each and eventually I do want some of mine to grow tall, while others I want to keep fairly small and easily moved around. I think doing research to see what you like best and then making a plan is some of the most fun, myself. But you don't have to if you want to do things more spontaneous. Experimenting is a great way to learn, too.

It did hurt a little chopping away at green, sprouting canes, but what nanadoll and mad-gallica said about the twiggy, spindly stuff made sense. Next year, I'll probably trim a week or two earlier, before the roses have a chance to put too much energy into new growth that will get cut off anyway.

It did, it was just a standard norway spruce - at least that's what the tag said. Like a 4-5' b-and-b. It flushed out a lot of growth last year and survived our bad drought with a lot of manual watering. It did have a lot of excess roots that had 'escaped' the burlap and was quite a nest of roots. In hindsight I probably should have cut them back to avoid a risk of girdling, but I ended up shaking out the wood chips and really watering it in well. Hopefully that doesn't come back to bite me. You think those hard brownish 'lumps' may end up shooting too? Yeah I'm in no rush... I'll at least wait until the other one I have shoots and see what happens.

Mind if I brump this thread ? Not in the realm of 4 inches of growth but is there any difference in 1st flush if you happen to see the bud swell with a sprout and prune then vs. a dormant prune in the middle/late winter ? FWIW, I got a bulk of my spring pruning done about 2 weeks ago - had some free time so I got the pruners out, cleaned up some leaf litter, put some compost down. Got my spring chores outta the way so I could enjoy ther warm weather when it comes