Spruce weaving baskets and for sewing together pieces of birch bark for canoes. See also Kiidk'yaas for an unusual golden Sitka Spruce sacred to the Haida people. Spruces are popular ornamental trees in horticulture, admired for their evergreen, symmetrical narrow-conic growth habit. For the same reason, some (particularly "Picea abies" and "P. omorika") are also extensively used as Christmas trees, with artificial Christmas trees often being produced in their likenesses. Spruce branches are also used at Aintree racecourse, Liverpool, to build several of the fences on the Grand National course. It is also used to make sculptures. The closely related species
Aintree Aintree Aintree is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, Merseyside. Historically in Lancashire, it lies between Walton and Maghull on the A59 road, about north-east of Liverpool city centre, in North West England. It is best known as the site of Aintree Racecourse, which since the 19th century has staged the Grand National horserace. During the 1950s and 1960s, there was also a three-mile-long international Grand Prix motor racing circuit on the site, which used the same grandstands as the horserace. A shorter form of the racing circuit is still used for various motorsport events.