Health and Beauty of Norway Spruce Trees--a Hypothesis

13 years ago

I have talked in this forum more than once before about the very high degree of variability in Norway spruce trees. In my previous posts I have emphasized the importance of having the right genetic strain for each area of the country--the right seed source or provenance.

Another issue I have discussed here is the possibility--I think a very high possibility--that Norway spruce trees are damaged and or killed by improper applications of soil acting lawn weed control chemicals. I don't have anything approaching good scientific evidence for this, but I have observed a possible cause/effect relationship of this kind so many times over the 30 years or so that I have just about concluded that it is fact.

Now I want to present another hypothesis about Norway spruce growth. Again, I have nothing like scientific evidence for my specific hypothesis, but there is a large body of scientific research that is at least tangentially related.

Here is my new hypothesis: That Norway spruce trees, especially those growing on strongly acid, and even moderately acid soils not especially high in magnesium content, can benefit from applications of pulverized or pelleted high magnesium limestone, even when there are no symptoms of any magnesium deficiency.

There has been a good deal of research on the causes and treatment of the so called "forest death" that has occurred in parts of the Black Forest in Germany, and in forests in other parts of Europe. Much of this research has focused on Norway spruce trees. The problem has been determined to be at least partly a magnesium deficiency aggravated by acid rain, air pollution, and drought. Applications of magnesium have proved to be beneficial. You can review this research on-line by using "spruce magnesium deficiency" for your search.

My hypothesis here is something very different from what that research has shown. Basically it is this: that seemingly healthy Norway spruce, but spruce that seems to have relatively poor growth and generally thin foliage, etc., can be made to look much more healthy and lush by the application of high mag limestone to the extent that the Ph and the amount of magnesium in the soil is brought well above the minimum levels needed to avoid specific symptoms of any deficiency.

In a nutshell, those of you who have poorly growing or unattractive Norway spruce trees may have a remedy.

I have been a careful studier and observer of Norway spruce for something like 30 years. I have had this hypothesis in mind for about 20 years now, but the only evidence I have had has been casual observations. More and more these casual observations have led me to think about this more and more. This last weekend I made an observation--again, not a carefully scientific one--that has prompted me to finally post this.

I visited the Morvin Park Estate in Leesburg, VA. I had visited this estate several times before. There are a good number of Norway spruce planted there. Almost all of them from all appearances, including their age, would seem to be a single planting from a single seed source. Most of them are relatively attractive, but not especially so. Now what really grabbed my interest at this visit was one particular Norway spruce tree. It is like all the others in its very basic appearance, including the cones. I had seen this tree each time I had visited the estate before and took no special notice of it--it seemed much like the others. But this time I was, and this may not be too strong a word, simply "shocked" by what I saw. This tree was so incredibly lush and full with dense foliage of a wonderful green color, that it looked like a completely different kind of tree from all the other Norway spruce trees there.

Anyone in the area can visit this tree--it is the first one you see as you take the path from the parking lot up towards the estate house. It is about 150 feet or so up from the parking lot.

OK, here is my hypothesis. How could that tree be so different from all the others on the estate, and seemingly so improved from what it looked like a few years ago? What could be different? What could be the cause?

This Norway spruce tree is the only one growing in a special garden area, the area where the most prominent former owners of the estate are buried. There has been in recent years a large project to restore the estate house, and along with that, some new special attention has been paid to the garden area. It looks like it has been more carefully attended, and here is the key, I am guessing, yes, just guessing, it has been fertilized, and the grassy areas, including that under and around this tree, treated with "lime."

There are a number of limestone quarries in the area, and many if not most of those produce high mag limestone.

OK, this is just one observation, but I have made many, many other similar ones. Just for one more--at the Virginia Arboretum there are a lot of nice Norway spruce trees. I have posted pictures of them here in the past. The best of those at the Arboretum are those growing next to if not virtually on top of limestone outcrops. The limestone in the area is a very high mag variety. Those further away from these outcrops where the soil is very deep above bedrock, do not look nearly so good.

Well, enough--I could cite one or two dozen more "observations" like these.

So here is what you can do. If you have Norway spruce trees that are not now perfectly gorgeous, and want to experiment on the basis of my hypothesis, apply high mag limestone at a rate of 4 pounds per 100 square feet under and around each tree to a distance of about 20 feet or more from the trunk. If you have soil that already has a high Ph, you need to be careful that you don't raise the Ph too high. One study suggests that the optimum Ph for Norway spruce is between 5.2 to 5.8. Of course what is the optimum Ph could very with soil type. If limestone is applied, the Ph on a light sandy soil will be raised more than it will be on a heavier soil. And soil depth is also a factor. So be careful. But the risks of the treatment I am recommending are very slight. I don't know that there is any chance you can raise the magnesium levels too high. I am not recommending using any other method to raise the level of magnesium.

The effects of the treatment I am recommending will come slowly--probably the results will take 5 years or more to be realized. It requires a year or so for the limestone material to sink down into the soil much at all. The uptake of magnesium in needles already formed is minimal, at best, and Norway spruce retains old needles for 6 years or so. So it will be 6 years before all the needles on the tree have improved levels of magnesium. And it also takes time for older trees to grow enough to show improvement in the density of their foliage, etc.

Yes, I repeat, this is all rather unscientific. I have searched for information about the effects of some kind of optimum Ph and magnesium levels for Norway spruce. I am not aware that any research has been done. And it is unlikely that any will be done any time soon. At my timberland I did an application like what I am recommending about 16 years ago. In one case, especially, the "results" have been dramatic, but I can't be sure some other factor was not involved. This fall I will more carefully select a few trees to treat in locations where I think any results could be less likely to come from other factors, and leave other similar trees untreated. This time there will be better reasons to think that any results I may see will be meaningful. I will report back in 5 years or so.

But I am confident enough about the possible benefits of this treatment, that I have spread high mag limestone around all my Norway spruce trees here at my home near Winchester, VA. Almost all look very good so far, but maybe they could look even better.

One hint--the "pelleted" variety of limestone is much easier to spread than the pulverized limestone. The brand I used here is produced by Stuart M. Perry of Berryville, VA. The analysis is:

Calcium oxide (CaO) 28.5%

Calcium carbonate (CaCO3) 51%

Magnesium oxide (MgO) 19%

Magnesium carbonate (MgCC3) 40%

Calcium carbonate equivalent 90%

Effective neutralizing value (ENV) 75%

These numbers I believe are typical of what is called "high mag" limestone. Another type of limestone that is high in magnesium is dolomitic limestone.

On the bag the recommended applications are: 1 bag (40 pounds) per 1,000 square feet to maintain Ph, and two bags to correct acidic soils.

Elsewhere I read that 40 pounds per 1,000 square feet could raise the Ph by .2 to .4. But I don't think there is much risk that the kind of application I am suggesting will raise the Ph of the average soil by enough to do any harm. But if your soil already has a Ph above 6.0, I would be careful, especially if the soil is light sandy soils and not very deep.

Of course, various soils have very different levels of nutrients, including N P, and K, and these can affect the soil reaction and Ph levels, and the Magnesium availability. Soils are not a simple one dimensional kind of thing. In addition, the depth of any soil is important, and the Ph levels near the surface can be very different from levels deeper in the soil.

I add all this so no one makes any mistake in thinking soils are more simple than they really are.

--spruceman

Featured Answer

spruceman
Original Author

9 years ago

spedigrees:

Limestone varies in magnesium content. If you go to your local agricultural store--I am not sure what you have up there--and ask for “high mag limestone“--crushed or pulverized--they should be able to direct you. The analysis is always posted on the bag. Dolomitic limestone is generally “high-mag,” but perhaps other types of limestone have a high magnesium content. Our soils here in the northern Shenandoah Valley are very high in magnesium, and high mag limestone underlies a good portion of our soils, and high mag limestone is readily available. And, almost all the NS in this area look very nice, in spite of our hot, dry climate.

As for soil acidity--that should not be a problem for Norway spruce, unless the soil is extremely acidic, maybe in the low 4’s. At my timberland, where the soils are a bit below 5, Norway spruce does very well. I am not sure what an optimum pH would be, and it would probably vary with soil type. Maybe somewhere in the 5.5 range is "safe."

As for magnesium for Norway spruce--this has been fairly well documented. I titled my original post “a hypothesis,” but there is substantial evidence. A site factors study done at SUNY Syracuse some years ago now, noted that “at least 75 kg per hectare” is needed for good NS growth. Studies in Europe, where there has been extensive decline in NS forests, has shown that the acid rain causes a reduction in the availability of magnesium, and supplementing magnesium often solves the problem.

And, I have made some personal observations--not scientific, and without all the facts--that magnesium supplementation can make a dramatic difference.

But, the main effect of magnesium may not be in height growth, but in the fullness, density, and lushness of the foliage. I have seen many poor looking, thin foliaged NS trees growing reasonably fast in height.

Also, the thin foliage on some Norway spruce trees has causes other than a lack of an optimum supply of magnesium. And, I know, some of that is genetic, and not correctable.

As for your experiment: Yes, 5 years should be long enough to show some results, but no sooner. The limestone has to dissolve into the soil, get down to the roots, and, because NS hold their needles for several years, the "thickening" of the foliage may not be vis1ble for several years. BUT, and this is a big "but," the effect may not really show up on very young trees. It may help the growth rate, but as for foliage density, that is never really noticeable until trees are somewhat older and larger--maybe not until they are 20 feet tall or more will any difference be really clear.

As for the growth rate: white pine usually starts growing faster than NS. How old are your trees? How tall? NS trees don't begin to grow fast until they are about 4.5 feet high, and that could be only after 6 to 8 years. At that point, they should "take off." On the best soils, and in the right climate, an average of 28 inches is possible, with some years the new shoots elongating up to 4 feet or more. But growth averaging 20 to 24 inches is good for many sites.

Norway spruce and white pine, assuming equally good strains, should grow equally well over the first 50 years. The white pine up to about 18 years should outgrow the NS, but after that NS should catch up a bit. After 50 years NS should outgrow the white pine for some years. SUNY Syracuse did a growth curves study for NS, and found that for the first 60 years--after the trees reach 4.5 feet in height, there is no "curve" as such, but a straight line. White pine growth curves bend sharply over to the right after the first 18 years or so, and at 50 years the growth averages about 1 foot, while at the same age, NS trees can still be growing 28 inches per year. But this rate does begin to decline not too long after the 60-year mark. On the best sites both should eventually make 150 feet or more in forest stands. Open grown NS should make 120 feet or more on better sites.

As for the blue spruce and magnesium, I really don't know. Tom may be right about this.

--spruce

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Comments (29)

spruceman
Original Author
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Here are two pictures of the spruce tree at Morvin Park I mention in my post above. I think it shows what Norway spruce should look like when they are healthy. If yours don't look this good, you either have the wrong genetic strain for your area, or you should try my recommended high mag limestone treatment.

--Spruce
wisconsitom
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Hey Spruce, I justify resurrecting this old thread by the fact that somehow, inexplicably, I failed to notice or comment on it when it was young. I find this concept very intriguing.

The area where I live is underlain by dolomite. There are many rock quarries where this material is blasted, crushed, and sorted into everything from ag. lime to "breaker run" heavy-gauge stone for road building, riprap, etc. Screenings are readily available and inexpensive last time I checked.

So now you've got me thinking.....the land where my plantation is lies at the very transition point between the soils we've got here and the much more acidic, sandy and granite-derived soils that make up much of the north. This is still farming country-my field where I'm planting trees is an old farm field that was alfalfa for years and is now corn, but is of a definitely different character to the heavy, loamy clay-based stuff around here. The corn up there this year actually did better than in the serious farming country further south, but that was because it rained up there this summer, unlike those more southerly areas.

What I'm wondering about is just how practical it would be to transport trailer loads of these screenings up there, for distribution around and under the NS sections of my plantation. At 4 lbs. per 10 sq. ft. that would run into quite a bit of material. But as you know, I share your fondness for really well-grown NS, and it is not beyond me to take this on.

Any thoughts, Spruceman or anyone?

+oM
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gnomeabram: This issue of lower branch retention interests me, and it may be complex and depend on a number of factors. Generally, any NS branch that gets half, or maybe even a third of a day's sun should not die. And, in a dense stand of hardwood trees, the most dense shade producing maples or beech perhaps excepted, a NS tree should retain most of its lower branches for many years, although the foliage will be thinner, depending on the amount of light they receive, among other factors. I have a good number of NS trees growing among hardwood trees, and they all have their lower branches intact. But, eventually, as these trees growing in a hardwood stand age, they will lose their lower branches, but it will take 40 or more years for this to happen. Factors that could affect the loss of lower branches could include genetic strain of NS and the fertility of the soil. I don't have very much specific information about the need for magnesium, but I suspect that those areas where NS doesn't grow as well as others, there could be a magnesium deficiency. I read one study that said that for the best NS growth, there should be 75 kg of magnesium per hectare. I am just guessing about the specific effects of any magnesium deficiency, but when I have any doubts, I add some high mag lime around my NS trees. I am sure there could be other fertility issues, but this one may affect trees that are in otherwise fertile soil where one might not suspect any deficiency. But I do think your idea about having wider spacing giving more opportunity for sunlight to reach the lower branches is correct--you could draw out the shapes of the trees and see geometrically how this could work. In addition, the wider spacing would avoid so many dead branches appearing between the closely spaced trees. Moissy: Having the NS trees close together will, if anything cause them to grow taller. If they become really overcrowded, height growth, and the overall health of the trees will be reduced. But this is unlikely to happen with a double row planted as a screen where there will always be good light on at least one side. But, individual NS trees will grow at different rates. Earlier I talked about how I love the variety in any planting of NS trees--well, a part of that variation from tree to tree is a variation in growth rates. Any screen that is planted with the trees fairly close, such as 8 X 8, will have some trees very much outgrown and eventually overtopped by others. Those trees outgrown by their neighbors will have their growth rates reduced even more by the crowding and eventual overtopping. In my own screen, as I see some trees growing more weakly than others, I will remove them, unless they have some especially attractive foliage or weeping habit. If I see things like those, I may thin out a faster growing tree to favor a more beautifully growing one. The main reason I planted 8 X 8 is to have extra trees and more chances to get some really outstanding ones. I dont see the issue of having to thin them out later as any problem. Work like that can be done just one tree at a time, and if at some point I canÂt do the work myself, I will hire some one to do it for me. Anyway, I canÂt live without a lot of exercise, so I relish it, and as need be, I pace myself. --Spruce
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And hostas (says Alfie, ducking). * Posted by: spec4lover z7 VA (My Page) on Tue, Aug 26, 03 at 15:35 OK, this is a different one...a large yard that has nothing in it but grass, grass, grass, grass........ That's why I spent the last 3 years putting in plants--shrubs, trees, perennials. I have 3 acres--one side yard had some large old oak trees, but the rest had only 3 maple trees 2 young tulip poplars, a grafted dogwood that had been allowed to grow so there was a native dogwood fighting with a kousa, a native dogwood, a few fruit trees, a large tulip poplar and a large pine tree (both of the latter were dying) AND lots and lots of grass. Talk about ugly...it needed either a variety of plants or livestock. It was a virtual desert, with few birds and no other wildlife around. * Posted by: lettssee z7 maryland (My Page) on Wed, Aug 27, 03 at 8:30 Lauriebee, you don't live in Pasadena do you? That is what happened on my street last year. We had an old tree out front that looked healthy from far away but was split down the center if you looked at it from the right angle so we chopped it down. then several others chopped trees down in front of thier house. I keep trying to replant there but everything dies shortly after planting. I loved that tree it shaded the whole front of my house. and the airplane thing got me because we live near bwi (several miles out) and the airplanes come right overhead on approach. * Posted by: KidHorn 7a MD (My Page) on Wed, Aug 27, 03 at 13:12 I hate Eastern White Pine. Everyone plants them because they grow fast. They're ugly, drop branches easily and ooze pine sap. Don't people know there are other conifers? * Posted by: perennialguy1 (My Page) on Thu, Aug 28, 03 at 1:21 People shearing every shrub in their yard, whether it is suppose to be sheared or not. My neighbor shears his forsythia in extremely early spring and then wonders why his plants don't bloom like mine! Everyone in my previous neighborhood had to have tightly trimmed boxwoods and evergreens. I revolted and refused to plant evergreens for several years. I relented only because I wanted some color in the winter. I did look for conifers with variegated leaves that did not need shearing. My new neighbors seem to be into not taking care of their landscaping, i.e., foundation plants so overgrown you cannot see the houses. Nor do they understand the least bit about growing grass. I had to dethatch my lawn and kill the overwhelming crab grasses. Every neighbor on the street has walked by to tell me that I shouldn't cut my lawn that short anymore. Hasn't anyone else ever dethatched their lawn around here? It might look dead, but, boy does it ever grow fast afterwards. * Posted by: DotFerrero z7VA (My Page) on Thu, Aug 28, 03 at 6:28 Treeless landscapes. I love trees and hate total grass lawns...I think the people must be lazy or just love their riding mowers! * Posted by: daylilydreamer 6/7Mid-Atlantic (My Page) on Thu, Aug 28, 03 at 15:41 I hate the whole grass thing as well, (grass, as far as the eye can see). Lots of Brooklynites move to New Jersey for the summer and rip out every tree and cover it with grass and stones and pavement. If they wanted no greenery, why didn't they stay in Brooklyn???????? * Posted by: shroom189 Z7 NY (My Page) on Fri, Aug 29, 03 at 9:08 most people have fake plants inside and outside....i.e someone has fake Tulips all over their yard all through the year from 100 degree weather in July/August and 2ft. of snow and 0 degrees in December to Feb...... * Posted by: jayirwin 7s DC (My Page) on Fri, Aug 29, 03 at 13:52 I really want to like Buddleja davidii (Butterfly bush), but man they all seem so leggy and thin, with only a few sad leaves hanging on to bare brown branches. I've never seen one full and healthy looking. Maybe there's some trick people don't know about. Can someone enlighten me? * Posted by: Mummichog03 z7 MD (My Page) on Sat, Aug 30, 03 at 20:54 Ripping out healthy, not evil exotic invasive, trees and shrubs? AAAAAACCCCKKK! No-one in my neighborhood seems to be on that trend, thankfully. Many of the older shrubs we have and maybe even one or two trees aren't necessarily the ones I would have chosen if starting from scratch, but they're here now and way better than scraggly new saplings of other species would be for too many years, so they stay. Is there any reason other than that so many people have them not to plant crape myrtles? I've been considering it (too much lawn, and no trees/shrubs blooming in late summer) I kind of like the small path lights, especially solar or on timers so they're only on in the evening hours, and especially if there aren't too many. The trend I hate (though i don't suppose it's exactly a 'gardening' trend, is the very bright driveway, porch, parking lot, other security, etc. lights, especially when they stay on all night ...I'd even get rid of many street lights or at least set them so that only 1/4 or so remain on after midnight ... something like that. Darkness is not necessarily a bad and scary thing! * Posted by: taurinus z7 a_NoVA (My Page) on Sun, Aug 31, 03 at 0:56 I didn't see any mention of pear trees...callery, bradford, whatever. Who else finds them a little too perfect? * Posted by: Josie_Z6b z6b Philly (My Page) on Sun, Aug 31, 03 at 21:21 A huge, sweeping, potentially beautiful area, dedicated *entirely* to, wait for it... ivy. Just ivy. Perhaps a single dead-wood-showing yew, like a lonesome island in a sea of ivy. Endless lawns, fertilized and herbicided all to hell, and then set up so that the sprinkler is hitting mostly the sidewalk. And people who kill all caterpillars, spiders, and bees, then wonder why they have no butterflies, their plants look funny, and there are mosquitoes everywhere. Unless you're deathly allergic, leave the insects alone! I like buddleia, but you do have to prune it to keep it from being leggy. When you do, it can be really pretty. And mine has sometimes as many as three tiger swallowtails and two admirals, all on it at once. * Posted by: steve22802 7a VA (My Page) on Tue, Sep 16, 03 at 22:13 - Shearing forsythia into balls, squares, hedges etc. This looks especially bad during the bloom season. Please, please just let forsythia sprawl naturally. If you really need to control the size then just whack it off at 2 or 3 feet from the ground (after it blooms in the spring), every couple years and then let it grow out naturally again. - Tacky lawn ornaments; that would be most lawn ornaments. - Bright colored plastic children?s toys, castles, etc. cluttering a yard. - Plastic lilies, tulips, etc. - Security lights which shine at my house. I hate the glare. I wish these people would mount the lights on the ground and shine them at their own houses, it would look much better and still provide some security illumination. - Gazebos sitting forlornly in an expanse of lawn. * Posted by: Laurel7286 z 6/7 Maryland (My Page) on Wed, Sep 17, 03 at 18:30 So many already mentioned that I agree with, especially the comments on hardscape & "garden decor"--I'll try to add something new. From my own yard when I first moved in: all green landscape, everything either 30-60' tall except for the grass, shrubs/trees planted too close to the house and waaaaay overgrown. And to daylily dreamer, I also hate all those contorted varieties of plants that look like aliens. I think they are peddled as "something new" and unusual, not necessarily beautiful. Also contorted unnatural colors of things--green coneflowers, etc. And last but not least, topiary an/or bonzai. * Posted by: katz_WI z5 WI (My Page) on Sat, Apr 10, 04 at 3:19 There's this one house with those sad evergreen bushes trimmed in perfect balls spaced out every 5 feet, and the ground under the bushes are covered in those ugly white rocks. Nothing else grows there. The people who live there are absolute neat freaks, and not a single weed would dare pop up. Their yard is overly rigid and symmetrical. Heck, they probably go out at night and use nail clippers to trim their bushes! LOL! I also really hate those figurines that focuses on the rear-end of a person bending over... like an old lady in a dress with a bonnet. Oh please! (Really, any figurine is tacky.) Every time I see those lawn animals like those fake deer statues, I want to scream. What else can be bad is the opposite of a barren yard--one that is overgrown, and has tooooo much stuff. Like there's this one house that has like 200 pots of flowers in front of their house! VISUAL OVERLOAD! EYESORE! OK one more thing--my MIL's side garden is so sad--she's got those chunky white rocks (ok I really hate white rocks with a vengeance!)and she's got these wimpy, whispy plants interspersed in the lot. My gosh, the poor things look like they're in a parched desert, and if a rock were to roll over, they'd be crushed to death. And she's got these troll figurines all over. They have no place to hide! LOL! Ok... time to get off the soapbox. :-) * Posted by: ReeW z7 MD (My Page) on Sat, Apr 10, 04 at 6:38 katz_W, your reply made me laugh. Lollipop trees and ball shrubs drive me crazy too. White rocks? The previous owner must have had used them as mulch and then put top soil over them and planted grass. When I went to dig out the lawn to make a flower bed I hit little white rocks. Lots of them. I was not amused. LOL * Posted by: medusa_ 7MD (My Page) on Sat, Apr 10, 04 at 11:44 What I really hate is the fact that there are many beautiful plants out there that have become undesirable simply because of their overuse. I love crepe myrtles! I love weeping cherries! I love yews!--Thank goodness they've fallen out of fashion. What I can't help but wonder is why so many people continue to put up with hideous plantings--evergreens naked on the bottom, nandinas that have been incorrectly pruned. Why don't they toss them or learn how to fix them. They actually work on them--you see them with the hedge trimmers every Saturday. Go figure. * Posted by: lettssee z7 maryland (My Page) on Sun, Apr 11, 04 at 7:47 Christmas lights all year long. I don't understand Easter trees either. Does the bunny hang eggs on trees? Anybody know why people do that? * Posted by: mymacca z6 SEPA (My Page) on Sun, Apr 11, 04 at 19:24 Gosh, I either HAVE or WANT most of the evil stuff everyone has mentioned! I enjoy the diversity in landscaping. In my neighborhood, there are some houses with evergreens pruned into symmetrical shapes, one house with a gazebo and arches covered in pink silk flowers with cherubs all over the place, lot's with vast expanses of ivy or impatiens, and almost EVERYONE has a Norway maple or two, because they were included in the price of the house 50 years ago! I like them all for one reason or another, especially if someone laboured over them! My least favorite garden trend would be FRONT yards with clothes lines, tall grass, visible collections of trash cans and the trash that "missed" the cans, auto parts, discarded toys and bicycles, and an assortment of junk cars which are parked in the lawn and street so the kids can play in the driveway! I also really dislike the low-pressure sodium streetlights that are replacing mercury vapor lights because they are "cheaper" to operate. I live in a large post-war housing development with a street lamp every 150 feet. They are mounted very high, and light up way too much area beyond the street with an ugly thick yellow brown halo that makes the entire street look like an industrial parking area. They even glare into the windows at night!! * Posted by: kkay_MD (My Page) on Mon, Apr 12, 04 at 12:06 This thread is too amusing to ignore. My pet peeves include people going to the trouble and expense of removing trees, and not planting anything in their place. The houses are then exposed, graceless, and (I'll wager) way too hot in summer. My other pet peeve is what I call "corporate lighting"--people who remodel their houses (in our neck of the woods that seems to be the trend) and get all kinds of spotlights to highlight their walkways and driveway and porches and facade. Light pollution! Sometimes it's nice to look at the stars. * Posted by: DawnStorm 7/MD (My Page) on Tue, Apr 13, 04 at 12:08 I'm glad I live in a free neighborhood where people can decorate their yards as they see fit, but there is this house along Conn Ave (heading South) that had these box-shaped pink azaleas in the yard. Always reminded me of someone who'd just enlisted in the Marines and had already had a date with the barber. Poor 'zalies! Somebody got a little crazy with the hedge trimmer! Several blocks down and around the corner from me is this homeowner with the world's largest collection of yard figures: deer; gnomes; geese, wishing well, mushrooms, you name it. I think it's tacky and I'm glad I don't have to see it, esp. in the fall when the geese sport Redskins helmets, but I'd rather have that than the monotony of a gulag (my name for a planned/gated community). Proud hanger-out-of-clothes (but in the side yard NOT the fron!) * Posted by: bunnymom z7 MD (My Page) on Tue, Apr 13, 04 at 16:26 This is a cool thread! Dyed Mulch in Volcanoes around dying, generic "mall trees" Plastic Flamingos, Fake flowers, "Buzz cut" forsythias & azalias, White rocks over landscaping fabric (compliments of former homeowner) HUGE trees two feet away from rowhomes...this one kind of amuses me though, I have a neighbor who just took out a huge Oak that was a few feet from the house and took up all of the front yard only to replace it with, yup, What I believe to be another Oak. Please keep this post going so people can see the error of their ways. This should be required reading for anyone who buys a house, much less anyone who wants a boo - boo free garden. The one thing I can say is at least these people are putting in some effort to Beautify their area. Beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder. * Posted by: madsquopper 7a No. VA (My Page) on Tue, Apr 13, 04 at 21:45 And what's wrong with plastic flamingoes???? I have two pair, but make them stay in the back yard. * Posted by: bunnymom z7 MD (My Page) on Wed, Apr 14, 04 at 15:43 As long as they are in the backyard for you to enjoy and not in the front for the rest of us posters to get a good giggle out of! :) Kitch & whimsy do have their place. To each his own. Those are just my opinions. No offense meant. :) Rachel * Posted by: NEYler 7 (My Page) on Thu, Apr 15, 04 at 16:44 I can't stand it when people have an overabundance of plastic wild life if the yard. A few realistic looking animals are okay ( I have a couple of small green toads peeking through my tulips ) But come on, have you ever seen a 2 foot tall deer? I'm also going to go with everyone else on the circle bed in the front yard along with the wavy looking concrete edging. I could probably go on and on, but it seems like so can everyone else. * Posted by: GeeDavey MD 7b (My Page) on Fri, Apr 16, 04 at 16:18 Ivy front lawns. nuff said. * Posted by: mymacca z6 SEPA (My Page) on Sun, Apr 25, 04 at 16:47 I have a few flamingoes and would love to have a gazing ball and a few Gnomes also, especially if I could find some of those nice large ones like George Harrison had. I have seen a few threads like this one previously, and the one I liked the best was the lady who spray-painted dried flower heads metallic gold and SWORE to her neighbors that they grew that way!!! I STILL laugh to myself thinking about that one! * Posted by: winged_mammal (My Page) on Sun, Apr 25, 04 at 17:12 bradford pears, forsythias, pampas grass, needleleaf dwarf & unusual evergreens, zoysia grass * Posted by: ritadc z7 VA (My Page) on Mon, Apr 26, 04 at 11:17 Sheared azaleas and forsythia! Let them flow! * Posted by: Sparky13 7b (My Page) on Wed, Apr 28, 04 at 8:52 Oh, you guys reminded me of something interesting I saw the other night. I volunteer as an EMT for my local fire department in the Rockville/Kensington vicinity. I was at an elderly man's house and, while he was speaking with another EMT, I happened to notice a couple of large, black-and-white photographs on the table. They were pictures of the house that we were standing in on the day he bought the place about a half-minute after it was built 50 years ago. This was a typical post-WWII property. There was no grass, no shrubbery, no sidewalks, no trees...just a brick house in the middle of a square of barren earth. Now the owner is 90 years old and the shrubs he planted many, many years ago are growing up over the house, taking over the yard, etc. When I drive through my neighborhood and see overgrown shrubs like this, especially ones that make the houses look scary and dark, I wonder if the owners are likewise elderly people who have neither the funds nor the strength to eradicate their good-plantings-gone-bad. Of course, this is not to say that anyone should feel guilty for loathing the appearance of such houses. They DO look imposing and unkempt. Those of you who take care of your yards know how frustrating it can be to live near a "creepy house," as my daughter calls them. I mean, they ARE creepy. But maybe the owners are old and sick and don't care and can't do anything about it. Time rolls around. The houses will eventually fall into other hands and with any luck the places will look spiffy, again. PS: My actual pet peeve is azaleas. They bloom for a couple of weeks, poop all over themselves and then are boring the rest of the time. I have some. The only reason that they are still here is that the roots are too much for me to dig out. So I've pruned them back to almost nothing and am taking up all of the surrounding horrid ivy that threatens to compromise my siding and basement. * Posted by: DawnStorm 7/MD (My Page) on Wed, Apr 28, 04 at 11:25 Sparky, you must live very close to me! You make a good point about yards being over-run simply because the homeowner is sick/elderly/on a tight budget. There are two houses in my mom's neighborhood: one right next to her and one right across the street. The one next to her was owned by an elderly man and his batchelor son for the longest time and the back yard was very woodsy. After the father died, the son lived out his days there, and one morning in 1982 went out in the back yard, put a gun to his head and you can guess the rest. To make a long story short, the house's new owners had that back yard totally redone and today it looks like any other yard. You can hardly see the house across from my mom's because of all the overgrowth in both front and back. Same story--batchelor son living alone in the house. Luckily, he's not so much of a hermit that the other person was--my mom says he likes to garden but he also doesn't do anything about all the overgrowth. Guess it doesn't bother him to the point where he'd hire someone to come and take it all out. * Posted by: himsa z7a MD (My Page) on Wed, Apr 28, 04 at 12:56 English ivy and trees mulched up the trunk like an ant hill! Why oh why? * Posted by: pcj42 NC (My Page) on Fri, Apr 30, 04 at 7:19 Painted cement figurines. Plastic yard ornaments. Cookie cutter landscapes that occur in housing developments. Flags hanging from porches (Ok so the very first one I saw was kind of neat, until EVERYONE had to put one up) I also do not understand Easter egg trees or even those big plastic eggs people are "hiding" under bushes. Too much "yard art". There is a fine line between just enough and overdoing it. Rusted "antique" farm implements lining the driveway. Pompas grass (my husband says "it takes a pompous #SS to have pampas grass), I like hostas, but they are getting old and you can never get rid of them. Pansies. I really hate Pansies. I think that about covers it. * Posted by: minibite 6b (My Page) on Fri, Apr 30, 04 at 11:42 "I also really hate those figurines that focuses on the rear-end of a person bending over... like an old lady in a dress with a bonnet. Oh please! (Really, any figurine is tacky.) Every time I see those lawn animals like those fake deer statues, I want to scream." Katz-W, You really had me cracking up with that one! On my morning walk, I'd been seeing rabbits, and I swore that the neighbors fake bunny was real. I think they even move it so it faces a different direction every so often. Sorry, but I detest the pink flamingos too. And oh the yard flags that change with every rhyme, reason, or season! What's the point!? Also, my hubby hates what he calls 'poodle' evergreens that you see in almost every new development with professional landscaping. O.K. I confess, I planted a row of evergreens in my back yard, but only as a screen for my neighbors unsightly junky one. I work tirelessly adding perennials and bulbs so that the conifers serve as a backdrop. And why does every front door have to be flanked by 2 evergreens. Now I've got two on one side of my front door and the house looks unbalanced so I feel forced to plant one more on the other side! My last comment is that some people just don't like gardening and don't have the time. My neighbors think I'm a little nuts probably because I'm always out digging and planting, and many of them work full-time, so I think they just want something that grows without a hassle. * Posted by: LaurelLily 9a Houston, TX (My Page) on Mon, Jun 21, 04 at 17:11 "Ivy front lawns. nuff said." Not enough said for me--I need to vent, because this is my pet peeve. It REALLY bugs me when people who have close neighbors and don't live out in the middle of nowhere do that! Don't they know how invasive ivy is?! And it looks ridiculous to have grass lawn after lawn, then suddenly ivy in the middle. It just looks like they're too lazy to mow! I LOVE English Ivy, but it has its place (in a container, where it won't take over your neighborhood!). It really is best in doses, not overkill. "My new neighbors, (god bless their poor little souls), replaced everything that was previously in their yard, (lilacs some deciduous trees etc.) with evergreens last year." Maybe you should gift them with a new plant or two--how about a non-threatening pot of something colorful? ; ) Even if they just let it sit on their porch, it'll be refreshing. They'll probably feel obligated to keep it in the front of the house, where you can see it. Ditto on the lawn ornaments. I have a friend who's collecting garden gnomes--precisely because he KNOWS they're ugly. It amuses him. * Posted by: LaurelLily (My Page) on Mon, Jun 21, 04 at 17:19 Oh, and I can't resist expanding this--to work! Everybody at my office has a pot of pothos/Devil's Ivy on their desk, or some "lucky bamboo." I wanted to have something extremely different, so I brought a small pot of mint up to work--now I have something near me that smells wonderful. * Posted by: DawnStorm 7/MD (My Page) on Wed, Jun 23, 04 at 10:58 I have a snake plant on my work desk--it was part of a big snake plant that I got at the Fall '03 swap. It really likes its home, but then again, snake plants are tough. * Posted by: Lynn_D Z5 PA (My Page) on Wed, Jun 23, 04 at 15:18 Colored mulch! Yards have been showing up with red for the past few years but now they have yellow and black as well. One house has them all, in waves, in one bed! * Posted by: Cathy_S z6 MD (My Page) on Wed, Jun 30, 04 at 17:46 The newest trend around our area is layering up retaining walls where retaining walls aren't truly needed. They have these new "building blocks" everywhere you can possibly find room for them. Add to that the carefully spaced plants and acres of mulch and the neatness is enough to make you sick. And, then everyone in the neighborhood has to have the same look. There's one place not far from our home where they have so many walls built up, there must be a serious shortage of building materials (either that or the manufacturers of the blocks have been able to retire to Europe). * Posted by: RacerD z7 TX (FW) (My Page) on Thu, Jul 1, 04 at 0:06 We have a few "rock yards" around here....two are neighbors down the street. Completely removed the grass and dumped a bunch of rocks. Now the weeds are starting to grow through. I just don't get it. I'm also sick of all the Bradford Pear trees....seems house after house has the same round tree. At least with Crepe Myrtles there are different colors. ;-) * Posted by: Adona z7 VA (My Page) on Thu, Jul 1, 04 at 9:50 I once lived near a couple who had an interesting idea of gardening. I hated it, but it also made me chuckle. Picture all flowerbeds covered in white rock...we're talking only white rock, no shrubs, etc. Add those plastic spinning daisies about every three feet. Can you picture it so far? Okay, now for the crowning glory...wait for it....two gallon glass wine bottles filled with colored water and placed between each spinning daisy!!! What a sight! Alright, I realize it isn't a "trend"....but I had to include it. * Posted by: NCGreenThumb Zone 7 (My Page) on Wed, Jul 7, 04 at 20:24 I detest yard art of any kind; Gazing Balls, wooden ornaments, gnomes, fake animals. The comment about the "bending over woman with the bonnet" made me laugh. I've seen a few of those around here. Nature makes plenty of plants and trees that are far more beautiful than the yard art du jour from Home Depot or Lowes. Cathy from Md made a comment about the building blocks and I have to agree. Bland, rigid and certainly not natural to the location. I guess I'm a minimalist at heart. I prefer to use what is natural to the area.
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Should I remove 100 ft Norway Spruce that's about 15 ft from my house.
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Comments (49)
The pic added by huggorm is not helpful to this discussion. Nothing remotely like that need be done here-as he himself does explain. Again, do as you please, but the doomers and gloomers here are going way off the tracks IMO. A few judicious pruning cuts would have that up and off your house in no time. Nor would it look ungainly. Now one thing to keep in mind-I have two-and especially one-very large, old arborvitaes-I don't know what cultivar but they look more or less like species except stay greener in winter.....and the seedlings thereof, which I collect regularly, grow unbelievably fast for an arb. In any case, the one in question is at the midway point of the front of my house, right adjacent to our front porch, so in a sense, badly out of scale with the house. These are big plants. But here's the thing: I like the tree more than I like the house and it provides a very nice, cool microclimate in warm weather up on that porch, holds uncountable birds and other critters, etc. So I'm not just thinking design elements here. And all of the attributes I'm listing for this big old arb could also apply to your spruce. I think another fallacy in play here is that one must always, everywhere, raise a tree up equally all the way around. Yes, I would normally do so too, but in certain cases-and this is one of them-an unbalanced approach can get you where you need to be. So in this scenario, more raising up would be done on the house side. Trust me, it can work.
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Some assistance with the perimeter of my property
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Comments (30)
First, I should say that I mentioned the idea of "specimen" because in your inspiration picture #3, it seems to have a number of what I'd gather to be large trees with the spruce, maybe a maple tree (not sure), but then a bunch of smaller shrubs with the dogwood, and ninebark, and then a smaller tree with the Japanese Lilac? on the far right . Usually a single tree on its own would be the specimen, and in many professional plans, the specimen would be flanked by groupings of much smaller plants/shrubs. So you don't have to have "specimen" items, but if you decided to have a single redbud in a hedge border, you'd probably want it to stand out, hence be the specimen, and you wouldn't want it to be lost in a sea of shrubbery. In the inspiration picture #3, the Japanese Lilac is a beautiful small tree on its own, but once the nearby spruce trees grow, you really won't be able to see it as a beautiful specimen tree. Say your specimen is the redbud. (We can't grow them in Ottawa, so I'm not familiar other than they look stunning on google). I gather that it is a relatively small tree (as compared to maples). It seems to me that because it is such a stunning tree and it is relatively small, you don't want to place the largest of the large shrubbery underneath it or right beside it. Ninebark from what I've seen are quite large, 8feet or so (but maybe there are dwarf varieties?), so I wouldn't put a grouping of ninebark right nearby unless they can be maintained at about 3 or 4 feet, but I like the ivory halo dogwoods because they are the smaller version of the standard dogwoods. Where I live, the ivory halos are maybe 4 feet high, so a nice height. And they are very easily trimmable. Again, I'm not familiar with redbud, but I could suppose that a grouping of ivory halo dogwoods might be nice on one side, and on the other side, another similar sized shrub - hydrangeas? I think you could also do more than one redbud side by side, but I wouldn't do a redbud right beside a serviceberry tree, especially if they have the same form and the same projected height+width. I'm not sure of the mature size of the service berry - I've only ever noticed them in my area as 10 feet high shrubs, but I see them on the internet as small trees. If they grow to a similar pattern as the redbud in your area, then I'd separate the redbud from the serviceberry and consider the serviceberry as its own "specimen".All of this is not to say you can't have 8-10 feet high shrubs - it is just that they should be visually separated from the specimen tree, especially if the specimen tree is relatively speaking, small. If it is a huge maple tree, no problem. So if it were me, and I had a redbud, I'd probably flank it on either side with relatively small shrubs, and then go for the larger 8-10 feet high shrubs like ninebarks. I don't think the blueberry shrubs can grow where I live, so I'm not familiar with them. But so far it sounds like you've started to simplify your plan and it sounds good. You might want to think about working in some evergreen along the right side of the property - you had mentioned a fir tree at one point. I don't know the mature size, but if large, maybe it could be a "specimen" along the side, but closer to the house.
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brandon7 TN_zone7
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
I too don't remember seeing these posts. Thanks Spruceman for your observations and sharing, and thanks +oM for bringing it to everyone's attention! The info is definitely worth consideration.
Toronado3800 Zone 6 St Louis
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
I missed it also. Wonder if there is a way to test this with a lot of 100 Musser Forrest seedlings...
wisconsitom
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
I did google something earlier, like "Norway spruce and magnesium" or something, and as you might expect, there's a LOT to look at. Of course, you've got to wade through the hypothesis, methodology of experiment, conclusions, etc and it gets quite trying to come up with some idea you can synthesize into an action plan. But there is a good bit of info out there, mostly from Europe it seems. Much is concerned with the issue of soil acidification through air pollution leading to forest decline. So it's both right on the mark and wide of the mark at the same time, if that makes sense.

When I dug up this old post, I thought I was in "Conifers" which Spruceman recently became active in again. Wonder if there's a way to notify him that this thread is back up here.

+oM
spruceman
Original Author
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Tom:

Yes, I'm here. I assume it is just a typo when you said 4 pounds for 10 square feet--of course it is 4 per 100.

But that is still a lot for a forest planting, but not impossible especially if one has a mechanical spreader of some kind.

It has been just 2 years since my original post here, so more time is needed, but so far the trees at my timberland that I gave some high mag limestone to SEEM to be showing some early benefit, but it is really too early to tell. Also, those trees are growing on soils that I believe have good levels of magnesium anyway, so any improvement may not be dramatic.

One point to remember is the magnesium is especially important for the foliage, and Norway spruce typically hold their needles for 5 years or more, so the benefits will build up over time. And, it takes at least some time for the magnesium to get down into the soil. With the pulverised limestone form, this will be substantially quicker than with a granulated form.

I have also made some more informal observations of Norway spruce growing in different areas. First, here in the Shenandoah Valley where the soils were formed over a high mag limestone, even though the climate is very hot, and has relatively low precipitation, especially in the summer relatively speaking, the Norway spruce have nice lush foliage. The limestone origin soils in the valley here run in bands oriented generally SW to NE. Soils outside these bands probably have less magnesium, and I see very few Norway spruce of any kind there. This could be because those soils are generally much less fertile, and are, at least in some cases, excessively well drained.

Also, in a couple of areas where I drive to get to my timberland from here, the Norway spruce are spectacular for their lushness. They are not especially large because of the hot dry climate, but they are gorgeous. I have not tested the soils for magnesium, but I would bet it is very high.

toronado: I don't think any test with seedlings would show much, if anything. First, the main effect I have observed--or think I have observed (I want to be careful here)--is not in growth rate, the growth in height. Now there might be an effect, but I am not sure. Of course, you could try.

But with seedlings, any difference in the fullness, or lushness of the foliage, would not show up until the trees are much larger.

The best experiment would be for someone living in an area where the foliage of Norway spruce looks rather thin, to give a good application, maybe a bit more than I recommended in my original post, and then wait 5 to 10 years and see if there is a difference. Maybe take "before and after" pictures.

Part of my hypothesis is that the benefits of Magnesium don't depend only on reaching a minimum required amount. It is my belief that there is an optimum, probably varying according to other soil factors, that may be substantially higher than that needed for generally healthy Norway spruce, that can result in really especially healthy and beautiful Norway spruce.

For those of you who have posted in this forum before about how the Norway spruce you see don't look very beautiful, All I can say is you are really missing something. I have a very strong suspicion that the reason is low magnesium in your soils. This is correctable!

Well, I make no promises, but I do have a belief, fairly strong, that I would like to see verified--or not.

--spruce
davidrt28 (zone 7)
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Spruceman,
Thanks for your really interesting, well thought out post.
Magnesium is, of course, an important nutrient for plant growth as it is used in the chlorophyll ring: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnesium#Biological)
I've seen some improvement in the health of a Concolor fir following liming with dolomitic limestone...though that could have been because of the correction to acidity.

Similarly, somewhere there's a research paper stating that the soils on which certain rhododendrons in China grow have a higher than expected pH, but the ratio of cations favors magnesium and, IIRC, manganese over calcium, compared to most mountain soils around the world. But the optimal ratios of Ca/Mg in plant physiology for most species is highly in favor of calcium. See this discussion: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/soil/msg0311011017714.html Some soils are so high in Magnesium and certain other minerals, that not even Picea abies can grow well: http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/content/95/4/661.short It's likely that each species has a preferred range of Ca/Mg/trace concentrations depending on its habitat, and it's quite believable that our more weathered soils here on the eastern US are low in Magnesium compared to the high-elevation soils in Europe.

NB that to correct mucky, marine clay soils closer to the ocean than the Shenandoah Valley, only the alkaline Ca++ ion can displace Na, and Mg in a reaction that causes the particles to aggregate into larger clumps, improving drainage. This is the reasoning behind using Calcium sulfate aka gypsum, although many such soils at least along the eastern seaboard are so acidic that there's no reason not to use calcitic limestone instead. (Also, the rain's so acidic here, it's going to quickly neutralize the lime lying on the ground. http://www.ekcsk12.org/faculty/jbuckley/leclass/usacidrainmap.gif There's no reason to add more sulfate when the rain already has very dilute sulfuric acid in it.) This is why I use both dolomite and standard limestone for different purposes. A portion of my lawn that was a mucky quagmire has been converted back into healthy, draining soil with calcitic limestone - it takes a couple years, and I don't advise everyone try this unless they are sure of local conditions warranting it.
I finally direct anyone interested to this article:
http://www.soilminerals.com/Cation_Exchange_Simplified.htm

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.soilminerals.com/Cation_Exchange_Simplified.htm
poaky1
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
My soil is 6.7 PH I am worried about getting more alkaline. My NS look good but are growing slow. I have one by itself in an area far from the others that has rocketed in growth. If it's just Mag needed can I just provide a source of Mag? I can use gypsum and an organic source of Mag. The growth rate is under a foot per year. They are from Musser forests, as are Toronados. About 60 miles from me. Maybe I should get a soil test. I thought maybe lack of chilling hours, but they are zone3-7. We are warmer than usual the past few winters.
spruceman
Original Author
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
David:

Thanks!

Poaky: The growth of any one norway spruce tree could be just that that individual tree is a runt. In any planting of Norway spruce, some grow much faster than others, and some very slowly. This is true even if the seed source is a good one.

The effect I believe I have seen from good magnesium levels in my area is more lush and dense foliage, not in rate of height growth, although I suspect that would benefit also, if not so dramatically.

Yes, if your pH is 6.7 I would try an alternative source of mg. But if they look good, maybe more magnesium will make no difference, and it might be possible to overdo it. Maybe you should leave them be as they are.

-spruce
wisconsitom
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Good catch Spruce, on that rate of application. I was thinking ten by ten foot area. So not entirely unfeasible. I'm of a mind to try it on at least some of my NS. Now in truth, it's too early to accurately assess the foliage characterisitics of these trees, with the oldest having been in the ground-from seedling- just 5 yrs. General appearance is actually good so far. But for the fanatic, which I definitely am, a boost to "luxurious consumption" levels would be a reasonable goal. Given the ease of acquisition, I will most likely simply go with the "screenings" which are plenty dusty enough. In particular, if this dry spell holds such that there is a period of snow-free ground, my window of opportunity will expand.

Just for the sake of conversation, I have noticed that NS appears to do especially well in S. E. Wisconsin, in particular, that area just north of the city of Milwaukee. My older son just bought a house in Cedarburg and that pictureque town is just full of big, tall, good-looking NS. As is true of the surrounding area.

Thanks all for a great conversation.

+oM
spruceman
Original Author
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Tom:

Are there any Norway spruce in the general area where you have your land? Any observations about those? If they look just average, I bet they could benefit a lot from some high mag limestone.

If I have a bit of spare time I may get out a map and see if I can find out anything about the soils in the area north of Milwaukee where you see really good NS. Generally these surveys don't comment directly about mg content, but they do describe the development and origin of the soils. If they were derived from some kind of limestone, that will be discussed, as, of course, will be their fertility.

Next time I drive up to my timberland I will try to take a picture of a nice spruce tree or two along the route that are especially lush with dense foliage. The picture I posted in my original post is a very nice example, but maybe another picture or two will help people understand what really good NS can be like.

--Spruce
wisconsitom
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Spruce, the area N. of Milwaukee is, in very general terms, of limestone bedrock origin. Now I can't stress this enough, I'm way oversimplifying. The glaciers mixed stuff around to a dizzying degree. But again, that area does have a limestone base. So does my own home range for that matter. They grow well here, occasionally extremely well.

Up to the north, I do see some that look real good and some that look less than great. I think that for consistently impressive specimens, that area N. of Milwaukee is the best I've ever seen. And possibly due to strong German immigration to that area 100+ yrs. ago, many, many of these trees were planted. They're everywhere.

It seems plausible too that the effects of proximity to Lake Michigan could be in play. All of the area I'm talking about is within a distance of 20-30 miles from the big lake. Mostly much closer. For reference, I'm talking Ozaukee, Sheboygan, Washington, and Manitowoc Counties. Mostly, the first 3.

+oM
bengz6westmd
11 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
****
spruceman says:

But this time I was, and this may not be too strong a word, simply "shocked" by what I saw. This tree was so incredibly lush and full with dense foliage of a wonderful green color, that it looked like a completely different kind of tree from all the other Norway spruce trees there.
****

Believe it or not, I had the same reaction at some point about NSs I'd planted ~1973 where I grew up. I'm pretty certain these were all from the same seed-source. Most are now 70' trees -- handsome but typical. One stands out though -- the "runt", at least at first (prb'ly because it was originally relatively shaded/sheltered). But now it looks very much like the Leesburg tree -- long, elegant branches (not as big of course). The soil is very good "Hagerstown loam" w/some outcrops of limestone, but generally moderately acidic (pin oak grows well).
abel k
9 years ago
Hello Spruceman I have a question for you. I live by Columbia Missouri and I want to plant some evergreens around the property to give it a forest feel. I was wondering if Norway spruce would be a good tree to plant. I really like them but our summers are hot here. Eastern red cedar does really well here but im not a fan of how they look. And where can I get the right genetic strain for my area.
Huggorm
9 years ago
I never heard of any lack of magnesium here in scandinavia were the norway spruce is native. They grow like weeds in pretty much every kind of soil. But the norway spruce is known to cooperate with several fungus known as "mycorrhiza". The tree and the fungus help each other out with nutrients and minerals. I believe magnesium is provided via mycorrhizae and if the right kind of fungus isn't present the tree will struggle to find enough of it. At least that is my hypothesis.
davidrt28 (zone 7)
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
abel I don't believe spruceman posts here frequently anymore (actually I now see that he has one post in 2015, so maybe he will see this after all)
Picea abies seems very heat tolerant and disease free in the mid-Atlantic IF they have good, well-drained soil.
However, I don't recall seeing many in, say, the Piedmont of North Carolina.
My gut instinct for Columbia, MO, is "should be ok, if the soil is good." The best test always, is just to look around where you live. If all the Picea abies look bad, yours probably will, too. If there are none around at all, that's a general clue/suggestion they will not do well, but NOT proof that they won't. Beyond that I'll let a poster from the midwest reply more effectively.
wisconsitom
9 years ago
Generally agree with Davidrt-this is a non-fussy and very accommodating plant. As to finding that magic key of genetics, whoo boy, good luck!
NS has been planted hither and yon for so long, it's hard to even say a given tree from a given area has that area's genetic lineage. Now very generally, I think some especially nice ones can occur in eastern Europe, right on down to the Caucuses Mtns. region. My own lack of geographic acuity aside, I learned from this very same Spruceman long ago to source NS from a variety of sources, so as to increase your chances of getting good ones. To date, I've planted perhaps 3500 NS on land I own in the "near north" of Wisconsin. The oldest, planted in spring of '08, are now roughly ten or twelve feet in height, with the past two growing seasons having been especially kind to them. Main leaders are stout, buds are fat, trees are ready to take over. Other than the even faster-growing hybrid larch with which they share real estate, they are the fastest growers so far. Forum member Resin had some interesting commentary on this board-not sure if these old posts are archived-relating how the species recolonized Europe following the last period of glaciation. Stuffed into my memory banks, and therefore subject to considerable contamination, it seemed he was saying that the plants which colonized what is now Scandinavia were inferior, genetically speaking, to those which populated areas to the south. I better let him chime in before I totally mangle his words, but suffice to say, with a species covering so much of the planet, there is indeed significant genetic variation. BTW, my first trees-those ones which are really getting big now-came from a place up in the Keweenaw Penninsula of Upper Michigan called-what else-Lake Superior Nursery-and I think are especially fine. Trouble with that nursery is, right now, I'm sure their fields are still covered by snow, so if you're in a hurry to get going, it can be a wait. Nice plants though.

I miss the contributions of Spruceman, he and I definitely sharing an enthusiasm for this very tree.

+oM
Huggorm
9 years ago
"Stuffed into my memory banks, and therefore subject to considerable
contamination, it seemed he was saying that the plants which colonized
what is now Scandinavia were inferior, genetically speaking, to those
which populated areas to the south."
Scandinavia is a large peninsula and the NS wandered in from north, unlike all other trees. And it rushed south so quickly so it didn't change to fit the warmer climate, so it is still more or less suited for a subarctic climate. When the timber industri plant NS today, they choose plants from Bavaria in Germany.
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
9 years ago
you should also start your own post ...

it would be much easier.. to contact your local.. COUNTY .. soil conservation or extension office.. and ask them for a list of recommended plants .. THEN. bring that list back to us.. for discussion and comment ... in your own post ...

e.g. .. talking to huggy.. in Scandinavia... is really pushing the envelop ... when you have resources within miles of yourself...

and i would not be surprised if your state forestry college .... usually the one with the word STATE in it... doesnt have a multitude of web info.. on local and native trees ...

well hot spit.. the first link.. indicates the state sells trees.. and i bet they are cheap..

https://www.google.com/search?q=MO+forestry+tree+recommendations&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

hope it turns it into a link.. when i hit SUBMIT ...

ken
wisconsitom
9 years ago
Yes Huggorm, that is more or less the scenario I was reaching for. And further down that line, there are-evidently-some very good genetics found within parts of Germany, Poland, and other areas. But Ken's right-this is such a widely-grown plant, there is info available within many states in the US regarding seed sources. It's not an easy thing to do, but if you're really set on drilling deeply into this species' genome, tools are out there to do so. Incidentally, don't overlook Canadian sources (of info). Both Quebec Province and Nova Scotia have done extensive work with NS.

+oM
abel k
9 years ago
Thanks for all the reply's. At first I was just thinking about planting white pines and some loblolly for diversity but then I seen some nice Norway spruces in town and that made me reconsider. My soil is clay but I have been reading that NS can grow in clay. What is making me hesitant is that our summers are hot and humid. I planted around 50 NS this spring and I want to plant some more next spring but I want to try to find some that are heat tolerant. I was wondering what nursery in the United States would have heat tolerant tress. I just bought a few seedlings form West Virgina State nursery but next year I will buy some from Virgina state nursery because it seems like they get there seeds from Romania and they will deal with the heat better.
viper114
9 years ago
The biggest ones I have seen are growing in a deep neutral pH soil.....the same type that black walnut thrives in.....in two different locations here in PA the Norway spruces planted in these condition grow immense and are perfectly healthy.
wisconsitom
9 years ago
Agree with the above statement. I've seen numerous good ones in areas of my own state with heavier, circumneutral soils. Spruceman's hypothesis that soils of good amounts of magnesium and even calcium-the two are usually found together-make for good NS soils. Now, just to throw a wrench into all this, where my plantation is, soil is a sandy loam. Here too, there does not appear to be anything holding them back. Pretty tolerant to a range of conditions. In summary, do not be hesitant to grow this plant on account of heavier soil. They appear to handle it just fine. So too with heat and humidity. We had a discussion recently in the Conifers forum ( I think) about some increasing troubles for a range of spruce species in the humid east. NS was the least troubled of all commonly-planted types, even surpassing our native white spruce in resistance to this emerging complex of pathogens. I've said for a while now that, as much as I care about native plant species and plant communities, I think our future is going to demand that we incorporate carefully selected non-native species into our plant palette if we are to keep up with all the introduced pests and pathogens coming into the continent from afar. While this is more about forestry and large-scale issues, there are tie-ins to residential and other landscaping, I think.

+oM
spruceman
Original Author
9 years ago
Abel K:

As Tom and others have pointed out, there is no easy answer to questions about the best strain of Norway spruce for any given area. Of course, if there is a stand of nice NS in your area, seed from the best trees there should give good results.

But the more I observe--and plant--Norway spruce, the more complicated and unpredictable I find this issue to be. A good number of years ago I “teamed up” with Dr. John Genys of the U of MD for a NS provenance trial, and my role was simply to collect seed in a three or four state area, and to solicit seed from a variety of other sources. The trial was never completed because the nursery moved during the second year of the seedlings’ growth, and everything was lost.

Anyway, to get to my point about unpredictability--the finest stand of NS I collected seed from was one in WV near the very small town of Glady, rather high in the mountains at an elevation of something like 3,300 feet. This stand has since been destroyed, but I collected, with permission from the owner, a number of seedlings. Eventually, I transplanted three of them to my place near Winchester, VA.

Now here is what surprised me--they are growing spectacularly well here, in a hot, dry climate very, very different from where that beautiful stand was growing in the mountains. As they say, “go figure.”

Dr. Genys had told me, and he reported this in one of his publications, that NS was very sensitive to changes in geographic location, specifically latitude. I can’t now remember precisely what he said, but as I remember, he said that something like 100 miles could make a significant difference. Now the “Glady” strain of NS I have growing here is not that far, in terms of latitude, from their “origin,” but moving from a wet and cool mountain climate to here is a very large difference.

Dr. Charles Maynard of SUNY Syracuse has done NS provenance trials, and his theory is that “land races,” that is stands of NS planted in this country, where the trees best adapted to local conditions have asserted dominance, are more likely to give good results than “virgin” strains brought fresh from Europe.

As for the strain offered by the VA state nursery, which in the past was listed as being from Romania, I have my doubts about its suitability. I Planted 50 here about 6 years ago, and they have not performed especially well. I expected better, but they are OK. I am not sure what the seed source was, or maybe still is, but those offered by Musser Forests have done as well as any. At one point they told me they collected from a stand in central NY, and then more recently, they were using a stand in PA. Maybe you could check with them--if they are using the same stand they used about 10 years ago, they might be worth a try.

Another important issue, however, is the variability within each source. Some sources seem to produce seedlings that are consistent, with little only moderate variation in the seedling/trees produced. Some other sources produce seedlings that vary extremely from one plant to another.

So, If you are buying little seedlings, get a good number, watch them grow, and then get rid of the poor ones.

But, maybe more important than seed source is soil quality. If you see nice ones in your area, get a soil survey map, identify the soil type, and see if you have something that matches it.

--spruce
spedigrees z4VT
9 years ago
Spruceman, thank you for this post from the past and for those who resurrected it! I have a couple questions. First, you speak of high magnesium limestone. Does ALL limestone contain magnesium (as well as calcium)? I have access to crushed limestone and it has worked wonders on my lilacs although I don't know that that was because of magnesium, calcium or something else.

My other question is: in your observations, do blue spruce also appear to benefit from magnesium, or limestone?

I have been reforesting areas of my property (in the northeast, ie Vermont) which was horse pasture for the past 40 years and cow pasture long before that. It is very acidic. Native white pines (along with sugar maples, birch, quaking aspen, and other native trees) thrive here. However the Norway and blue spruce that I have also planted are slower to grow. I lost some, but I expect this is the case with any variety of seedling trees.

I'm thinking seriously of adding lime to my young spruce trees, perhaps experimenting by treating only half of them, so that in 5 years or so I can make a comparison. Do you think that the blues would benefit from this addition along with the Norways, and does my crushed limestone contain magnesium? Thank you in advance.
wisconsitom
9 years ago
Sped, perhaps I can be of help here. The type of limestone most notable for being a combo of calcium carbonate and magnesium carbonate is called dolomite. It just so happens to be the type of limestone underlying the area where I live. As to whatever lime material you happen to have, you would have to track down its origins to answer your questions regarding it. There's no way I or anyone else can somehow know what it is you happen to possess.

I think it quite possible that Colorado spruce may show this affinity as well. Not saying this to be fact, just that this tree seems to do well in heavier, limestone underlain soils too.

+oM
spruceman
Original Author
9 years ago
Huggorm:

I’m sorry I didn’t comment on your Mycorrhiza hypothesis earlier. I have had the same thought. In recent years I had noticed some improvement in the appearance of lots of NS spruce in various places--sometimes when I suspected that liming had been done, possibly with high-mag limestone, but in other cases not. Such fungi are readily spread by the wind.

One of my favorite people in forest research that I have ever talked with, is Dr. Edwin White, now retired, but formerly Dean of Research at SUNY Syracuse. He directed the 4 in-depth studies on NS that were done there a number of years ago. I told him about my idea about some new strain of mycorrhiza being somehow introduced, and being responsible for some improved NS trees, and he said that he couldn’t rule it out, but that it was probably unlikely.

A number of years ago several conifer seedling nurseries began selling seedlings “treated” with one or another kind of mycorrhiza. As far as I know, they stopped doing this after two or three years, and I would guess because the results were not improved. Of course, they may not have been using the best mycorrhiza.

I once did my own little experiment, and collected some spores from fruiting bodies growing out of the roots of some of my best NS trees, which were growing extremely fast, and then applied that to some seedlings I planted. I couldn’t see any positive effect. That could be because the same mycorrhiza was already in the soil where I planted the seedlings.

Anyway, there is so much we don’t know. If I were a young man now entering college, I would consider a career in forest research, and some of these issues we have been discussing could be things I could follow up on. It could be very exciting.

--spruce
wisconsitom
8 years ago
Every study I've reviewed detailing the results of human-applied mycorrhizal associates-in anything better than a stripped-out pile of mine tailings or very sterile sand-has been a disappointment. So, just as research has shown there to be a bewildering array of these organisms present and evidently doing a great amount of work in virtually every natural environment, efforts to therefore boost growth, root system formation, or any other criterion have been decidedly underwhelming. Reasons given include: Wrong species or strain of fungus, adequate mycorrhizal associates already present in soil matirx, too much latent fertility of soil (mycs have "nothing to do"), competition from pre-existing species or strains, inadequate start-up conditions for mycs......it goes on from here. So, while science has shown these organsims to be nearly everywhere and nearly indispensable to natural systems, the growth. culturing, and subsequent application of myc materials has not gone well so far. This is not at all to say it never will. Much is being learned and in time, favorable results may accrue. But so far-unless I've missed something-adding man-made preparations has not offered much more than good ad copy on the inner page of the nursery catalog.

In natural stands, it seems to be the case that each tree species in turn is supported by and supports a specific fungal associate, maybe more than one. These fungi are also mediated by soil bacteria. It really does get crazy for those of us used to things like NPK percentages on a bag of fertilizer, etc. Much, much more complex. Oh, and BTW, it has been proven that a mature "mother tree" will shunt resources to a struggling baby tree via this mycorrhizal network. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, but using radioactive iodine-easily traced via Geiger counter-it was shown that not only are photosynthates and other nutrients sent to the little guy from the big tree, the tests showed this happens rapidly, almost instantaneously. There's just so much we don't know!

+oM

Health and Beauty of Norway Spruce Trees--a Hypothesis

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