Notice there is also a conifers forum here (spruces are conifers), maybe try that.

I've seen several Colorado blue spruce trees around here zone 7a sometimes 7b, where the average middle summer high is in the low 90s with high humidity. Some years it can reach over 100F but not commonly. One colorado blue spruce is in full sun and was at medium size, I would say 30+ years old.
I think more south around zone 8 is where they start doing poor.

i and some others i know have tried them and found they didn't live for us in zone 8 (southeast u.s.) but treeguy says they do in zone 7 so it wouldn't hurt to try one.
got to draw the line somewhere, i reckon.

It stands a good chance of looking hideous and diseased.
Why don't you plant something equally attractive, a sure bet in your climate, disease-free, and far,far more interesting, the blue china fir.
Cunninghamia lanceolata glauca.

{{gwi:357605}}

Don't know why you think it stands a good chance of looking hideous and diseased.
None here look "hideous and diseased", they look perfectly healthy and beautiful after 30 or more years of growth.

Were do you live in GA chueh? I know you live in zone 7 but that covers the entire northern part of the state. The northern quarter of GA is "cooler" in the summer than here, and they look and grow fine here.

Well, that is interesting. In the DC area, I see a # of them looking really sickly, especially in the areas less likely to have cool nights in summer. (i.e., urban areas, and near the bay) I attribute this to not liking the hot humid climate, and assumed it would be worse in the deep south. But if they can look good in Alabama I'm impressed. Are you in the mountainous parts of Alabama? That could explain their survival.

I, too, am in Alabama. Huntsville to be precise. I see many Blue Spruce around here, looking quite nice. I'm always a bit surprised when I come across them, though. There are a few right on my own street, in this hard Alabama clay and full blazing sun.

My husband planted that Cunninghamia (the link is to his web site) several years ago, and it has done beautifully. They're going through a campus expansion right now so I'll ask him if this tree has survived the construction and the darned beavers that they have on campus. If so, we'll post a recent picture of it.

No, don't live in the Appalachian Mountains of NE AL, just in a hilly area. It's quiet interesting how they can live in the thick silty clay loam soil here as well as very humid and hot conditions. If chueh lives around Atlanta or north, Colorado blue spruce should be able to grow easily.

Blue spruce quite often decline after 10-30 yrs in this area, w/lower branches dying first. Guessing that it's from a fungal needle disease, but not sure.

I've seen occasional exceptions that reach 50' or more w/little damage, tho.

beng, thank you for corroborating me. Maybe whatever we have that affects them hasn't moved south yet.

I have to deal with seeing crappy looking ones every day in my own neighborhood, in fact in my own YARD! RIGHT IN MY FACE EVERY MORNING LOL! As I continue to master my chain-sawing technique, I eventually plan to take that one down. Real soon now in fact.

treeguy123, thanks for correcting me, I was only trying to keep the OP from making a mistake he would regret. If they grow well in the deep south, that's good for anybody who actually wants one.

I know this is very late after the post, but maybe it will give someone courage to try with a small inexpensive plant. I just sold a house in the DC suburbs and am moving to an area about 30 mi south of Atlanta. who knows what zone any more. I prefer old 1990 hardiness map. My blue spruce 25 mi west of DC were fine and full as were most of those I viewed on other properties,and the summers can be just as hot (days at a time not weeks) as Ga. It's usually hard to diagnose an ailing tree on a property one is driving past. Some homeowners just never water during drought. There's a bagworm problem there too. In the ARkansas of my youth where climate is a lot like Atlanta and Athens, Ga, I remember blue spruce. as with so many mountain plants, no standing water, but water water water during the summer the first few years the tree is becoming established.

continued. I say the fun of gardening is learning how your own terrain works and what pluses and minuses you have. This works for many plants that might prefer the lower average temps further north. Rhodies, mountain laurel, hemlock. Pick a gently sloping site where it's shady from 11-2. It would be great if it gets morning and evening summer sun to compensate for the midday sun. At least it's a foliage plant and you don't miss any flowers or fruit. Shade has the added benefit too because, if it lives, it will grow more slowly and, believe me, it is heartbreaking to have to remove a plant because it's growing too well. Most important water the root ball thoroughly during the summer or fall if dry. It won't wilt to warn you. If it's on a slope any excess will drain away.

Maybe there's a lot of selective viewing going on. I will insist the vast majority of CBS I see in the DC area look awful. It's a little better in the Philly and central PA area...maybe only 40-50% look awful there.

Yes once in a while you see an ok looking one in DC. Never over say 25-30'.

Never mind the ones that get removed for looking awful, which would count toward the "bad" cohort if they remained. 3 my parents planted around the time I was born (mid 70s) were cut down about 5-6 years ago.

Would challenge anyone south of the Mason-Dixon and not in the mountains to post pictures of big really healthy ones, over 30', fully clothed to the ground with no foliar issues or dieback. I'm not going to bump this thread every 8 months with a single word post "crickets". But seriously, feel free to prove me wrong.

"My blue spruce 25 mi west of DC were fine and full as were most of those I viewed on other properties," how old were they? And 25 miles west of the DC area it is certainly possible to live on top of a small mountain...that doesn't count! (we obviously don't have LA's huge backdrop of mountains or anything close, but indeed, in winter I have been driving in Centreville or Sterling, VA, looked out west from a high ridge on a clear day, and seen snow covered mini-mountains. On a clear day at Tysons Corner you can see Mt. Sugarloaf - that's how I discovered it! They have an old CBS at the estate there, with the typical dieback of lower branches.)

Colorado Blue Spruce is an over planted tree that is often planted in wildly unsuitable climates. It is very sensitive to humidity levels...how humid is your area? Are spruce spider mites a problem?

The tree is so well known it HAS been tried in your area. Drive around the area and look for older, mature specimens. If you can't find any, or if the older ones all look ratty, be wary. Disregard small young specimens...even in unsuitable spots, it can take a few years to self destruct...and some commercial property owners assume all the landscaping will get killed and replace the trees every few years.

Also, consider Blue Atlas Cedar: Cedrus atlantica (Glauca Group) 'Glauca Pendula'.

"It is very sensitive to humidity levels"

Well, what we call humidity in the US anyhow, which is really high dewpoints.

The rootstock onto which a blue spruce is grafted makes a HUGE difference.

Just noticed the date...if the OP is still online, what did you decide? How did it turn out?

Ididn't live on Bull Run Mountain (certainly no mountain) but the summers in Herndon were 2-4 degrees cooler than the District. My advice to a gardener in zone 7 is to try it, enjoy it for the 15 or 20 years it is full , sorry if you don't live to 100 and don't get to see it top out at 65 feet. for suburban gardeners with small yards, or don't wish to cast deep shade, then a 15-20 foot tree is fine. LEt it die a slow death after that. Many conifers actually get characgter when they're losing lower branches. All the power and cable lines interfere with tall trees and the power companies will often fell trees even 20 feet from the lines.

I hadn't been up to Lancaster Co. in a while so I plotted a visit to the Amish dairy where I buy raw milk to make yogurt. Not something I do frequently at all, but a fun winter project. Drove around quite a bit just because it was a nice sunny day. Carefully eyed all the conifers to ask myself, am I being unfair about CBS. Conclusion, absolutely not.

Here is what I call some absolutely typical ones.

These are lined up pointing almost due south, so shading out isn't an excuse; in fact the reason the one on the right light looks a bit better is likely due to getting some shade from the white pine. The look of the one on the right is about the best you can hope for for a "big" specimen. The one on the left, split leader, very thin foliage...more typical.

Here is how I rank all typically seen large conifers, on what is considered some of the richest agricultural soil on the east coast:

1) Norway spruce - by far the best.

2) White pine, fuller green ecotype

3) Douglas Fir (not many of them, but there are a few here and there)

4) "field cedar" aka Juniperus virginiana. Tend to look better when wild though, than grown in a garden.

5) White Pine, thin, glaucous ecotype

6) CBS

various conifers are in the "not enough information" category, like Thuja 'Green Giant' and Cedrus atlantica. You seem they are being planted, but no truly large mature ones. Interesting that most of the 'Green Giant' already are showing some bronzing up there, while mine are still mostly green.

Not sure what I am seeing about the white pines to be honest. (I am mature enough to admit when my knowledge of something is incomplete) There seem to be healthier, thicker white pines, like the one in the photo above. Then there are generally smaller ones with grayer, bluer needles. Superficially one might just say "well, perhaps they have a juvenile to mature foliar change" - although I had not heard of such a thing...but you do see blue ones that are quite big, and green ones that are smaller than those biggest blue ones. So there's quite a bit of overlap if it is a mere phenotypic change. If it is a genotype difference...my GUESS would be the green, plump ones are a more southerly collection...perhaps seed coming from right in PA, where as the blue, scraggly ones are produced by unthinking wholesalers with seed from Maine or something. Because - and again my recollections are incredibly vague - the thin bluer ones are more what I think of white pines up there looking like, while the greener, fuller form is what I think of southern white pines as looking like.

Apparently there are selected "blue" white pines, like Pinus strobus 'Glauca', so maybe those are the bluer ones I'm seeing. In any case looked at some pics of native white pines in the southern Appalachians including PA, and can confirm they usually have the greenish color I associate with the bigger, healthier ones. Another clue is the ugly, thin looking blue ones are more often in suburban landscapes, while the old farmsteads are more likely to have the healthier, "wild" type white pines. Makes sense. These old ones seem to have weathered winter storms better -and if they do have branches break off, it does so in a way that doesn't hurt the tree, long-term. While some of the bluer ones look severely mangled by recent snow damage. You'd expect an alpine form from the far north to only be used to powder snow, while the local ones can cope with the wet snow we get down here.

And final btw...this was one of the only times it was easy to take a picture. (anyone who knows that area knows that there are hairpin roads with fast traffic) So maybe not the best choice of photograph because of the other things going on. But incredibly, CBS always manage to look bad! An impressive trait! There are some that will look like the one on the left, growing out in the open, middle of a yard with no other tree for 100 ft. They will still be scraggly and have split leaders. There are some that will look that bad with very light shade, or moderate shade. They really won't last in heavy shade so of course you don't see that. OTOH, Norway spruce manage to look good no matter where they grow. Singly or in groups. Top of a hill or bottom of a hill. Near a house or away from a house. Doesn't matter.

I agree David that, particularly isolated white pines usually don't "weather" as well as isolated N spruces. Almost always such W pines have some broken branches or even lost tops (ice storms are a common cause). The old, vast pure stands of them in PA & NY were dense & self-protecting like a redwood forest & maybe a rather chance situation instead of something that is likely.

I see a distinct difference in sugar maples in my area between the wild ones (early, yellow fall color) and later-changing, red-colored planted ones. Rarely I see a bright red sugar maple (it isn't a red maple) among the yellow ones on a mountain roadside.

davidrt28: We do get plenty of wet, heavy snow up north...it just comes early in the season.

Around here Blue Spruce is a mixed bag. You see plenty of healthy beutiful young ones. You see a few healthy beautiful old ones. You also see a lot of sad looking ones. White pine would seem to be the conifer to plant, but it's tendency to drop branches in ice storms ans intolerance of road salt make it problematic in suburbia. Norway Spruce looks great, but someone said it is an invasive species in our area. Austrian pine is plagued with disease. A bit of a dilemma when trying to decide on a full sized conifer.