HI

THEY ARE CONIFERS.. THERE IS A RATHER ACTIVE CONIFER FORUM. carp ... should you wish to be enabled in the future..

but they are also trees.. so i will answer you here...

but first.. since you post here.. i am going to surmise.. you are a bit of a newb..

so my first question .. is whether you understand the potential of Picea pungens... google that and flip to images ... and add your cultivar name ...

IMHO.. they should be.. 15 to 20 feet from the driveway ....

is this where the rock is??

how much space do you have to work with ...

i will show you a pic of mine tomorrow ...

ken

This is not going to be a traditional driveway, I doubt it will be paved or have gravel. There is a 12' opening in a post & rail fence and I planned on planting on both sides of this opening ... Approximately 8' from the fence and about 6' from the "driveway" ... The rock is located where I had wanted to plant about 24" below the surface ... One of the reasons I'm planting the tree in this location is that it will provide a privacy screen for the property and delineate this property entrance. This particular variety has a mature height of around 20' and about 8' in width.

the plant in the pic.. was a one gallon pot..no larger than one foot .. at planting.... in the lowest year noted ...

the growth at the top between 2007 and 2008 is 18 inches....

using that as a scale ... i am thinking... after 6 years.. this thing is going on 6 to 8 feet wide ... meaning 3 to 4 feet from the trunk on each side ...

that means.. in a year or two.. it will be touching your driveway ...

care to give us a pic of your project ..?? it sounds like a great concept ....

there are smaller versions of the typical Picea pungens... if you can return these ... but it still leaves you with the rock

ken

{{gwi:205545}}

edbarns, when they list in a catalogue how big the variety gets, that is only after " a reasonable time", that doesn't mean it's going to top out at that size and stop. I have a fat albert blue spruce, listed at 20 feet, and it's typical fat albert shape, so probably not misslabeled. It's way past 20 feet and still going strong. grin. I'm in PEI, on good soil, so it will probably get a bit bigger yet.

It depends how wide the rock is. Most trees won't even put roots 2' into the ground. Trees will grow like this in nature all the time and don't topple.

I'd plant right on top if I had to. Perhaps plant a bit higher...meaning root flare being a few inches above grade.

By the way if it roots wide it will be less susceptible to toppling.

This particular rock would have been about 6" below the root ball and it was very wide. In fact, I'm not exactly sure how wide because I decided to stop probing and find a different location.

The roots would have been able to go wide, but not deep. I'm not familiar with how the root system, but several nurseries advised against planting in that location.

Ed, I would not plant the baby blue spruce in that location for 2 reasons. Baby blue is cultivated by seed and when done in this way a small percentage can revert to their natural sizes and therefore could grow as large as normal colorado blue spruce. Also, IF the rock was a problem the baby blue will still be a fairly large tree to fall when mature. However if you want a blue spruce in that location I recommend a smaller cultivar named baby blue eyes. It is cultivated by grafting and therefore will not revert to natural size and will catch less wind requiring less of the root structure. I've seen spruces growing out of a crack in a rock. They are very adaptable.

Our property has been farmed for about a century, and all sorts of things are buried here. There used to be another barn and a cement manure pad for it. Erosion of the neighbour's land has put about 6 inches of soil over the manure pad....and full size spruces are growing in it. Every so often you see a heave mark in the soil, where a root has tunneled under a piece of cracked cement and lifted it as it grew. Spruces can be enthusiastic.
They grow only slightly less each year than their buddies in undisturbed soil.....and it's only noticeable in a dry year. If your big rock is bedrock, even that is apt to have some cracks in it for roots to dig down to water. Might not either, so flip a coin and decide that way, grin.

Hi everyone! Apologies for butting in, but I'm curious if anyone who's planted one or considering it could weigh in: I'm debating between a Baby Blue Spruce and a Moonglow Juniper. My new neighbour installed two oil tanks and I have a direct view from my kitchen sink. The area is populated with mainly pines, birch and some deciduous anonymous trees. About 50 trees were either cut or cleaned dramatically over the winter, so it's hard to guess the amount of light, but I'd say it will be part-sun. Many thanks! -Dina

Getting back to OP's original question-you've got me confused. I could swear I read "it's about 18" to 24" deep......" and then just now, I see where you wrote that the rock is 6"deep. It's entirely possible that I'm misinterpreting something but what i really wish to comment on is your-OP's-misconception about how tree roots grow. To grow outward is the normal situation and most definitely does not lead to a weak or infirm root system. Plant roots-like all plant parts-need to undergo respiration, a process which requires oxygen. Down deep in most soil types, there's little if any oxygen so we don't tend to find roots down there.

Whaas already covered this for you so I guess I'm repeating. But the main point is-depending on the actual depth of this rock-there is no particular reason not to plant on top of it. If that poor tree depended on sending roots downward into that tiny area, the game's already lost. The good news is that it is not dependent at all on this.

edited to add: Sometimes it would help to read the date of the initial post!

Dina, since you are in Nova Scotia, I am guessing some salt air and lots of wind. Colorado spruces are windfirm and OK with salt. We can hear the ocean here on a windy day. I don't know many folks here with juniper as it turns brown in wind and salt. I'm north of you, on PEI.

Hi jocelynpei! Greetings from NS and thanks so much for the input! I am miraculously not close to the ocean. We moved from downtown Halifax (very windy & coastal air) and although only 20 minutes inland, it's quite calm here.. We're also surrounded by trees (great windbreak) and on a lake. The temperature here isn't as temperate as downtown though. It's hotter in the summer if that helps any. Good to know about the juniper turning brown though....I was leaning towards it when I read that it glows silvery blue in the moonlight: --What can I say? I guess I'm a romantic gardener at heart:) -Dina