Hi Stephanie,

Your 'Mission Blue should be ok.

Of the 3 branches on the tier right under where the lead was pick out the strongest to train up to be new leader. Use stretch tape and a support, a small piece of bamboo as an example. With the support taped to the main leader gradually retrain the new found leader to become the main leader.

It could form one on its own but results will be quicker if you jump in and give it some help.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Info on 'Mission Blue'

the only problem your spruce has.. right now.. is that you are worried about it ... relax ... you can barely kill things ...

first.. more leaves.. and yes .... a needle is a leaf.. means more food production.. means faster root growth.. for faster re-establishment of the roots disturbed by the planting .... so leave it alone for now ...

plant it properly .. you give no facts as to size or how it came or how you planted it... if you need help there.. start a new post.. or look at some of the older posts...

lets see how it buds out this spring ... presuming it hasnt already ... and lets see how it reacts to making a new leader itself ... and we can make some adjustments later .. or next year.... this tree has at least 50 years.. if not 100 years of life in it... waiting a year or two to get itself straightened out.. really isnt going to matter to the tree... if you can just relax about it ...

after the new growth begins to harden off .... you MIGHT want to tie the longest side shoot to the ex-leader.. to GENTLY guide it skyward .... but if you do this too soon.. fresh growth can snap right off ... in a year or two... once that branch gets the idea.. you would remove the old leader ...

if trees couldnt fix themselves.... we would have a lot of very short forests .... lol ...

just dont kill it with too much love or worry ... plant it.. remove circling roots.. water it properly .. and all else will follow ... do not feed it.. do not amend ... and do not drown it ....

good luck

ken

I have seen workers at Home Depot routinely pick up conifers at the top and move them around or load them. You can forget about proper handling at HD - its far too much trouble to pick up the rootball or container - they might have to bend over! So you see many broken tops.
Nurseries who hire day labor risk their plants in the same way.

Thank you all so much for your expertise, advice, and encouragement.

Since there isn't any one branch that looks stronger than the other, I'll wait a bit before picking a new lead. Hopefully, the little guy will decide on its own and I won't have to meddle.

I'm just glad it's not going to stay 3.5' forever. Short forests did make me laugh when I read it, I still chuckle when I think of it. I'm going to do more research on this forum and take care of this spruce properly so that it'll grow big and strong.

Thanks again,

Steph

the only problem with sprucey's suggestion .. IS THE NEED TO DO SOMETHING ... LOL ...

i will try to skip the tying up part ... but i dont know if i can be so unproactive ... lol ...

i actually do both .. if i see it.. i try to guide it.. but on 5 acres.. with many conifers ... an a long way back to the garage to get rope/twine and back .. i have to admit... those that get missed correct themselves as fast as those i mess with ...

i guess its a Zen thing.. the ability to walk away .. and let it solve its own problems...

just plant and water it properly .... and you will be rewarded.. everything else is just fiddling ...

good luck ... ken

Ah, I am back in time to correct my mistake before one or more of the very knowledgeable people in this forum points it out. I said that the internodal buds of spruces are "alternately" arranged. No, they are, technically, "spirally" arranged. Pines generally have their buds arranged in whorles at the nodes, which is quite different in its effect. With pines, especially those growing in the open rather than in a forest, a broken leader, especially of two years worth of growth or more, can well benefit from some intervention.

Anyway, when we have a little tree we love, it IS hard to leave them alone to fix themselves. But the snipped leader in this case hardly needs any "fixing" at all. It is very far from being a problem.

--Spruce

I did find link this on the Mission Blue.
http://www.peaceofmindnursery.com/catalog_i671784.html?catId=25091
It looks similar to my Bakeri I just got. Awesome blue color ... I'll post pics soon.

Well to make a long story longer I'll just add my 2 cents for further review. Spruce kinda left me hanging with the idea I didn't know what I was talking about. As for Ken he wanted to take the cautious rout. I didn't want to appear a complete dummy so I thought I needed to resurrect my standing on the forum or at least try to.

Stephanie, I can imagine you are throughly confused by now. I know I would be. First of all I tell you to tie up your new leader and get the process going. Then Ken comes along and says give it some time and do it later. Finally Spruce says don't do it at all. Let it grow its own.
I would not argue with both of their suggestions. What they have told you will work.

As for me I am not one to let nature take its course if I have a proven method that works and I can escalate a change in the growing habit of a conifer without injury.I have straighten and started may new leaders with excellent success with the method described in my first post.

The photo I am posting is a Picea omorika 'Pendula that decided it didn't want to grow a main leader 2 years ago. As you can see after 2 years I have a new leader and I will take the tape and support off shortly. If I had waited for this conifer to regenerate a new leader on its own I guarantee you it would not be even close to the finish product you see in the photo.

Thanks for giving me the time to show what a little ingenuity can accomplish.

Dave Picea omorika 'Pendula'
{{gwi:695046}}

Saw some 5' Mission Blues at a local nursery today. Very nice. The color was amazing, especially this time of the year. The Fat Alberts right next to it, although pretty good, were duller. They were all ?pricey? 200 Smackeroos.
Hank

Ah, Dave, I think we are talking about different kinds of things here. I would have done exactly what you have done with your Omorica pendula. Yes!

But this Mission blue thing is quite a different kind of tree, I think. I see them often in local nurseries, and they are growing exactly like the species Colorado Blue spruce--strong, vigorous upright growers with strong leaders. My assumption here is that this Mission blue spruce in question will grow exactly like a seedling (species) blue spruce--I will bet its origin is from a seedling, and although it is grafted as a cultivar, it will grow just like a seedling spruce, My understanding here is that the one that we are talking about has long since established a leader and that impulse to grow and replace this leader is very, very strong.

If you have a regular seedling blue spruce there is little or nothing one can do to defeat this strong impulse to grow from a single, occasionally double, leader. I have had some of my spruces lose their leaders to weevils several years in a row and each time by the end of the season in which the leader was lost, a new one was growing. You just can't keep these things down!

In this case, leave the thing alone. With many other kinds of cultivars, especially "pendula" varieties, they are much more likely to need some help. If they are young grafts, many, if not most, must be staked for a period of time. And if you saw my previous post on the subject, sometimes they need to be staked for a frustratingly long period of time. And if once a leader is finally established and then lost, I would guess some more staking will be in order.

In this case, if I understand the description by the original poster here, the leader was not realy even completely lost--just snipped off somewhere above the point that the year's growth started. It will re-grow even "easier than pie."

--Spruce

P.S. Forgive me if I an going overboard here trying to avoid a misunderatanding. You are one of the most knowlegeable conifer people in this forum. I wish I knew half as much as you do.

Come on Spruce. I appreciate your kind comments about me but I am just a pretty basic guy with a limited conifer back ground.

Resin, bboy and you, just to name a few, are the educated minds that give good solid information to most people on this forum that need advice.

I am just a tag alone that will take an occasional photo of my ever expanding conifer garden for show and tell purposes only.

Not a big deal.

Dave

Well, Dave, be that as it may, I appreciate what you and others have to contribute here. I came to my tree experiences through a different channel than most here--forestry. But along with that came my botanical studies in college (my major for a while) and behind it all, just a love of the beauty of trees. My interest in conifer cultivars is relatively recent, and I need a lot of help, as the frequent questions I ask here show.

--Spruce

I'd love to discover a Mission Blue at HD. My local HD does have Ponderosa Pines for the first time ever. They are a local tree and they are around 5' and healthy looking. They also had a birds nest spruce ...