picea pungens 'neon blue'
jancarkner
18 years ago
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conifers
18 years agocarterobrien
18 years agoRelated Discussions
The mystery of Picea pungens 'Baby Blue'
Comments (19)Fat Albert's aren't dwarf. I have seen them over 25 feet tall and still growing at a rate of 1 foot a year. They were touted as the next best dwarf to Glauca Globosa. Usually grafted. Iseli and a few other nurseries root them. Baby Blue is just what was posted above. Just a normal growing Blue Spruce selected with powder blue foliage. It retains it good colour year round and can be reliably considered uniform is growth. Nice plant but not outstanding and not dwarf. Just considered a nice landscape tree for those who don't want to buy a more expensive grafted form. Baby Blueyes is a grafted selection out of Oregon. One of the biggest plants around is at the National Arboretum in Washington which I think is 18 feet or so and still growing over a foot a year. I have a few here and they grow easily 1 foot a year. Nice colour with a dense form. For growers, needs less staking, pruning and less time to fill out before being shipped off to market. P.p.Neon. another superlative term given to a Blue Spruce. It is bright coloured. Comes from the U.S. and is carried or at least was originally carried in Canada by Mori Nurseries in Niagara-on-Lake. Nothing better than what isn't already out there. Must be grafted. On another note. Those tags that give height and size are often those sizes by 10 years of age. Just another sales tactic to try and get you buy a "dwarf" sounding tree. Most garden centres are too cheap to buy real dwarfs because they are more expensive to buy in. Do a little research before buying a "dwarf" conifer. If you can't find info on it. There are tons of folks in this forum that know a lot about conifers. Just post it. Hope this clears up a bit of the confusion. Darren...See MorePicea Pungens Wells Blue Totem: Know a Non- Picea Version?
Comments (5)Blue Suprise is a good choice but make sure you find one that is grafted to a root rot resistant rootstock. Otherwise you could have Phytophthora issues. At the nursery I used to work for, we used to say - only partly in jest - that they named this cultivar Blue Surprise cuz it was a surprise if the dang thing lived very long. Root rot used to knock them down in no time. Fortunately, these are now usually sold as a disease resistant grafted specimen....See MorePicea Pungens(Blue Spruce) grow in a pot in CA
Comments (16)Thank You Kulbaba for doing this thread. Wishing you the best of luck from down here, in your dirt poor habitat! (I have a similar situation except in Christchurch New Zealand, we do get climatic extremes with over several sub zero frosts every winter and high sunshine hours. I also have some outside space to try and put it into the ground over winter. Am considering leaving it in a pot and burying the pot in the ground 10 months a year but like the wise gardeners above have said, we would be pioneers if we could make them survive for any years in the pot but you know, we just don't have the knowledge to make it work alone so it would be a group effort ! But our Christmas is the height of our summer so! Might have some added luck on our side. I know there are healthy spruces growing outdoors in my city. Ideally I'd like to have her inside from Dec 1st to about Feb, Dec is pretty much our hottest month during these El Nino weather cycles. Am watching this thread with interest, and learning that there is a huge and wide variety of info online of caring for potted spruces. Even bonsai blue spruces that seem to have wildly different needs. Here's a photo of our one, which is called Picea Pungens Glauca or "baby blue". On the label it says it will be 15 m high after a decade after planting outside, so that doesn't sound particularly slow growing but am not sure. It's easy to fall in love with these particular babies! But she's got some browning needles on the very inside next to the main trunk. After different affirmations especially from your experts above am going to buy some food for her and get her outside to a morning sun location over the next few days, aiming for a pot snugly within a pot lined with plastic on the sides or something so I can whip her out and check her roots and things. She wouldn't have got many nutrients in the place I am choosing for her, so all her nutrition will have to come from me, but it is by the front door on the morning sun side where I can at least see if she is looking healthy every day.) One specific question, when we went away on holiday for a week we put her in a moist place inside with some access to filtered sunlight so she wouldn't dry out so much (same size container as Kulbaba) and I have kept her soil not dry ever since we got back, with the browning needles on the inside parts, could this be occurring now from the dry out due to temperature that finished two weeks ago, or some trauma even further back? Cheers if anyone can answer, how long after trauma / dry outs do the needles go brown, is it normal for any of the needles to go brown. But please don't call child services on us! wink wink...See MoreI think I have a picea pungens 'baby blue' pendula
Comments (14)Thanks everyone! You have me quite excited about this tree. It is in part shade/part sun. It is tucked a little back in a wooded area but is south facing to an open field(the back side of the tree-1st pic, doesnt get as much sun as it should, and the front could probably use more as well - I was already "planted out" when I planted this). In the pic it is behind/to the right of the globe spruce on standard(middle of right side). It appears this is worth moving to a full sun location. Not sure that I have any more of those spots, but next year I will more than likely move it (when would be the best time? what about if I can move it in the next month- Ive planted conifers as late as Jan 9 (chiseling with shovel) with success. Ill figure out a better/full sun spot and replant something else if I need to make a spot. Might as well give it more ideal conditions(at least its not in my large vernal pool that lasts until August, even September some years) like other conifers I have planted -conifer islands) . Since deer have yet to mess with even a single one of my picea pungens (they prefer japanese maples, birches, willows, white pine, aspen, some picea abies,etc-they took it easy on the weeping white spruce in the pic a couple years ago) I dont think a fence will be necessary. Thanks for everyone's comments, I feel lucky to have stumbled upon this....See Morejancarkner
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