Hi Bill,
I don't believe that the plant itself will ever get this large in diameter, but the skirt around the base of the plant might. Hopefully someone else will weigh-in with their opinion on this, but if you need a conifer 8' in diameter I think you will need to select a different plant.
Mike

Is that trunk diameter or crown diameter?

I meant the diameter of the trees branching at the base of the tree. I can handle having this tree's skirt on the ground pruned which wouldn't necessarily take away from its great form. I hope ya get what I mean. I wasn't looking for an 8 ft dia tree and know what these are like as I have one, but I have never seen anything too wide and some descriptions say up to 15' dia which makes me wonder what the time frame is to get to 8' dia which is where it would start being a maintenance issue.

Bill

This one in my garden has a skirt diameter of 13ft.(3.96m) and is 9ft.(2.74 m) tall. I planted in 2000 and it was 3ft(0.91m tall and skirt size was minimal. I suppose you could rein in the skirt size of a 7ft (2.13m) to accommodate your needs. You could add rocks or ground covers to avoid that whacked off look when you trim the skirt area.
In your case to obtain the desired results you are after I would start with a young tree and selectively prune to bring off that look you are after rather then trying to remake an existing specimen that has taken on a certain growth characteristic.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful:

Holy crap Dave, that is a bigger skirt than I would have thought. Are we both talking glauca Pendula (I know I misspelled in original posts)? Mine is about 5 1/2 tall by 2 ish wide at the bottom.

Here is a better example or question. What do you think the dimensions are of the one in the Iseli photo and how old? Come on, you guys are supposed to know these things. What am I paying ya for :)

Bill

Here is a link that might be useful: Iseli Nursery Picea glauca 'Pendula'

You know mckenna I just might be loosing it. Let's start over again.

I posted Picea pungens instead of glauca. Sorry. Maybe I can equate it to cabin fever. We have had a snow storm ever 3-4 days since the middle of December and bone chilling cold. In any case the glauca will be more manageable then pungens to control skirt growth.
That photo from Iseli has at least a 30 ft. skirt.

The Picea g. 'Pendula'as shown in my garden is 9' tall with a 8ft in circumference skirt. As limbs get to big you can selectively trim them out.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful:

I planted mine in 2005 as a 4' tall plant and it has about doubled in height, with with roughly a 24" diameter skirt. This is just a rough estimate, but the skirt on mine has been increasing about 4"/year since planting. I'd agree with Treelover that its unlikely you'll see it reach 8'd, at least in the first 15-20 years. I've seen a couple of these in the 20' range, and I don't think the skirts were anywhere near 8'd.

This tree is very, very narrow. I have had one for about 8 years, and the lower part of the crown is barely 3 feet across. I would expect that it will be narrower than 8' for many years. There was a very old one at the national Arboretum in D.C that must have been over 50' tall and I don't think it was much more than 10' wide at the base, if that. Unfortunately it expired in recent years.

--Spruce

Dave, circumference, shmir-cumference. I care about diameter :) I hear ya with the endless snow & cold. Got another one coming here manana.

I figured that this is one conifer that should hopefully fit this space and give a great vertical accent to this cul de sac. Last year I put in a couple of 13 ft Pinus luecodermis Emerald Arrows in 2 parking lot islands. So far they look dope. It is good to be king.

Bill

Maybe a off key thought, but is it a 'must' to stake the leader on this cultivar?....I've found some 4' B@B's at a local nursery with a $180 price tag....Is that 'pricey' or reasonable?... My wife even likes this one...LOL

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:644043}}

Unusual they should be staked. They need no stake for support. Could possibly been used to keep leader straight. Occasionally this conifers leader gets mixed up and will take off in a weird direction. I have two in the garden. One doing it's own weird thing and the other with its leader staked to keep straight. That will be coming off this Spring as it is back on track.
$150.00 to $300.00 depending on size is about the going price for these conifers.

Dave

Since all of the scion material for this plant is taken from the pendulous side branches, this plant needs to be staked until it is from 4' to 5' high for apical dominance to take over and the plant to start growing upward on its own.

I purchased a 2.5' plant in 2002 for 65.00 and I didn't notice that the original leader was allowed to grow to the side and one of the side branches was trained upright. The plant was nearing 6' and the leader still needed to be tied to a support. Last fall, I cut this plant back to see if I can get a new leader to take over. If not, I will dig it out and replace it with another P. glauca 'Pendula'.

A local garden center had some 5' P. g. 'P' last summer for the shocking price of $599.00. I couldn't believe it; that's just nuts for a plant that's 5' tall. I did notice that not one of them was sold over the course of the summer. I wonder what price they will have on them this year?
Mike

I bought a 3.5' one last fall at Home Depot for only $30!

Mike,

Have you ever been to Tangletown in south Mpls? It can't be far from your place. Anyhow, I stopped in for the first time last fall and they had about a 12' P.g. 'Pendula' (maybe taller) for $1700. If I spent that much on a plant I'd have to hire security for round-the-clock monitoring of it. I'm thinking their clientele is a bit higher up the economic ladder than I.

Bob

$1700.00 seems like a lot but when you consider the time, space and care for this conifer waiting on it to mature to 12ft the price is not out of line. I would assume that price is negotiable depending on who you are and how much stock you buy from the nursery. The grower probably sold it for $800.00. Profit margin is considerable and you have to consider the nursery's overhead,shipping included,which bumps the price up. Most of the time they pocket about 2/3rds of the price on the tag if no discounts are involved.

Dave

I used to sell trees at a retail garden center and we'd bargain with guys all the time. That's just in general. Mike is of course totally right about the 4 foot rule, I read it in a Fincham catalog somewhere along the line.

conifer50 it's a hell of a tree. At four feet, I'd be inclined to ask for a price of 120 dollars, now if I was growing them myself and had people stopping by, I'd sell em for 75 bucks. Free to my friends of course.

Dax

{{gwi:599512}}
This is a 25 footer I'd reckon. Bill either the tree will be 50 years old and 50 feet tall or it will decline in about the same amount of time. I'd guess this 20-footer to have a lowest limbs diameter of 3 feet/ 1 meter.

Dax

Hi Bob,
Yes, I've been to Tangletown many times and that's the nursery that had the plants for $599.00. I purchased a 7' Ginkgo biloba 'Umbrellas' from them last year and the plant was very reasonably priced, IMHO ($149.00).

Tangletown gets some great plants, but they are a little (a lot) steep in the pricing on some of their plants. It's funny, some things are very reasonably priced and others are just outrageously priced.

Dax,
That's a great pic of a P. g. 'P'. This is one plant that deserves to be in every landscape.
Mike

I forgot about that one at Rich's. I would guess about 5+' dia at the bottom of that one and around 22-25 ft tall. Thanks man. I'm sure they'll be my source for this tree. I love those paid work days where I have to tag trees.

I got mine for $80 at about 5-5.5 ft tall on sale in August. I want a small one to use as a ground cover but they always sell out of the 1 gal ones at Rich's before I get my chance. That foliage is just so fluffy and touchable looking.

Bill

Thank ya Mike.

Bill, cool. Rich is a real nice guy and so is Susan. Real nice folks there at Foxwillow Pines. Thanks for doing the things that every city planner should be doing.

Have a chill one,

Dax