we move conifers in dormancy . ... [we are not talking about potted plants] in my z5 .. as soon as the ground thaws ... 6 to 8 to 12 weeks before the heat of summer hits ... or in oct when the deciduous trees go dormant.. and the conifers are moving towards dormancy ... if spring were to hold ... the timing would not matter ... what we want/need ... are the roots to be working and pumping.. by the time the real heat hits in july/august ... whatever water is in the plant.. is in the plant .... for bud burst .... for the most part ... ken

For me cutting off the ends of branches on a Norway spruce or a blue spruce would disfigure the tree, perhaps permanently. One of the beauties of a spruce tree is the sweeping branches reaching outward. If these are cut back, causing the branch to fork, it takes away from this effect, and could result later on in these forked branches crossing each other. I was once driving along with a friend and pointed out an astonishingly beautiful Norway spruce tree with wonderful weeping branchlets. This person told me she thought the tree was ugly, and added that she did not like trees that had any space between the branches. So, beauty may be in the eye of the beholder. If you want a dense tree with no space between the branches maybe some other kind of conifer would be better for you. --Spruce

Thanks for all the replies! Tsuga, yes the rootballs have been soaked very well. +oM, yes they were planted after the new growth was already pushed out. This is not good? I was wondering about that actually... but what can happen? (and more importantly is there anything I can do about it now?) Dave, Ken, Resin, and Spruce: Your answers certainly make me feel better. I hope this is normal for these trees. The droopy new growth on our spruces appear droopier than those in the pics you guys posted.. Here are some pics I just took this morning of our actual planted trees. Sorry I could not get up closer...I had to take them from inside the garage because it is raining. If it ever stops, I will run out and get a close up of the new growth. Tree with the most growth (all the "stuff" you see in back of these trees is in my neighbor's yard). Tree with the least growth (to the left of a doug fir). Dave, that is an awesome pic of your Picea mariana'Aureovariegata'. I just read that in Newfoundland they actually boil the branches to make spruce beer! :) lol Spruce, to answer your question as to why I bought these, I had requested some narrow growing blue spruces (similar to a Bakerii) plant in a triangle formation as a windbreak/privacy screen for this extremely windy area of our side yard (north-west exposure). Our tree guy suggested these, and said these look awesome. I am not yet sure of exactly how they grow, but they were so nice looking I could not resist having to find out! ;) We have plenty of room on our property, so if they should ever grow too wide we will deal with that when the time comes. But I plan to do some research to find out exactly what we have here. If/when I do, I will definitely post the info here! I am suspecting it is one of the hybrids that I've read about that is a cross between a blue spruce and white spruce... but who knows... I will post a close-up of the growth tomorrow (if the rain ever stops).

Will this fast growth affect the quality of the wood? I doubt it, but in any case I am not growing these trees for the wood. Most of them are part of the long screen I planted last year along our property line. I am a great lover of violin/string music, especially string quartets. It has long been a mystery how the wonderful violins by Stradivari (and some others) in the 17th century were made. No one has ever been able to match them. The tops are made from Norway spruce, and are supposed to be largely responsible for the wonderful sound. Now if someone wanted some wood to make a violin I would be agreeable!! A couple more observations. I have never seen this kind of growth on older, larger NS. I have about two dozen older and larger ones planted around here, and none have these summer shoots. And I havent seen it, to my knowledge, on the thousands I have on my timberland. Sometimes, standing far below, I have seen some kind of compensatory growth at the top of trees that have had a weevil attack, but I never had an opportunity to examine it closely. Occasionally I will see a few fresh needles develop at the tips of the leaders of larger trees, but there was little, if any growth involved. Also, there is no branching of any consequence, either on the shoots themselves, or at the point where they started to grow at the end of the original spring shoot. Dax: as for my white pine supertree--it is about 85 feet tall and pruned up to 35 feet or so. I would need a professional climber--and one who would not climb with spikes! gnomeabram: the growth I have on my trees looks something like yours when it is just starting. --Spruce