Sounds like you don't have enough room for something like these. How tight is "tight," how many feet across?

Bakeri will be smaller and the exposure shouldn't be a problem but the lack of sun might be. If you have to have a spruce Bush's Lace, Picea Glauca Pendula or one of the narrow selections of Picea Omorika such as 'Berliners' would work better. David

I'm not sure, but I don't think it will be very blue in shade.

KarinL

thanks, you folks know your stuff. Why i like the hoopsi is because i see a house that i think has 5 of them(or bakeri) and the wholesale landscaper has 2 old ones in front of his house. and they are sparse and tall and fairly narrow, which i like. because I want to be able to look through them from my window. i love my spruces and have a whole bunch of them around my country home in the Poconos, (pa.)

They are dense for a long time so you wont be looking throught them in the next 10-15 year or more. David

I just bought 3 Bakeri recently and they are fabulous. They are rather narrow but still have a narrow pyramidal shape to them. Wonderful blue or silver blue color. Found a local nursery selling them ...

Zone 5 you are so Hemlock would be the very best choice because of winter kill of woolly agelid.

Tsuga mertensiana 'Blue Star' is the ideal tree but I've heard this is a tough tree to grow.

Another:
(not blue but yellow) Picea orientalis 'Skylands' will be a lighter yellow in full shade:

Any Picea pungens will do miserably, get all disease ridden, etc - because of the full shade.

Another one I just thought of that should do pretty well actually is Chamaecyparis nootkatensis 'Glauca Pendula' (photo at link below)

Dax

Here is a link that might be useful: Rich's Foxwillow Pines

Here are a few pictures of my new 5' Bakeri spruce ... lighting was terrible (or at least my photography skills) ....

I really like them, because of their color and because they are the right size (smaller, narrower) for where I was putting them.

To me, the Hoopsi look a lot better, but are a lot bigger ... so really for a different situation than a Bakeri.

These don't look dwarf nor is the cultivar supposed to be. You should have planted the ones you like the look of better. In fact, these may turn out to be less compact than 'Hoopsii'.

They were labeled as cultivar 'Bakeri'. I saw some more Bakeri at a different place today and they looked the same only 1 foot shorter.

The place I was at today had the 'bizon blue' ... and I would have to say they were gorgeous. Extremely blue. I went to see a Hoopsi, but they didn't have them in yet. They wanted $199 for a 5' bizon blue (non dwarf) ... but its was very dense and gorgeous blue. But then side by side with the Bakeri ... the main difference was the more sparse nature of the Bakeri vs. the Bizon Blue which was dense ... but similar colors with the edge going to the Bizon.

By contrast, I got these 5.5 to 6' Bakeri for $99 each from a local tree farm. For around here, thats a great price on something out of the ordinary.

Where in CO do you live? I can't find any 'bakeri' that size for under $200 around Denver.

Along these lines, can anyone get a correct estimation on size for these cultivars?

I get anywhere from 12'x6' to 45'x20' for Baker, 40'X10' to 50'x30' for Hoopsi.

I don't like that it is so slow growing, but would 'Baby Blue Eyes' be a better choice for a "narrower" specimen?

I think baby blue eyes is probably a slower grower and maybe more size limited (in the end) than these others.

I've got a 7' baby blue eyes and its way wider than the 5' Bakeri are. I really get a feeling that the Bakeri will remain rather narrow as is gets taller. It will probably become talled than the baby blue eyes, but not very wide. I'm seeing quite a bit of new growth on my Bakeri, even this first year (planted in April) ... and I suspect they will be growing at a similar rate to Hoopsi, but will remain narrower ... but could get taller in time. The pyramidal shape of the Bakeri just seems narrower than the Hoopsi. And the Hoopsi is narrower than the regular blue spruces I have. Right now, at 8' each ... my Hoopsi and Baby blue eyese are similar sizes, but I know the Hoopsi will outgrow it bigtime in the future.

I've seen a lot of size quotes for the Bakeri, but the Majority of them show it as being a lot smaller than the Hoopsi.

** I just saw some nice Bakeri over at the the Castle Rock lowes for around $39 or $49 each ** ... a good deal I think. I think they may have been 3.5' or maybe 4' trees.

I got mine over a pine line in Parker, look up Bakeri on the denver craigslist and you'll find them. They were $99 each for 5' tree. These ones at Lowes might be a better buy, for that price ... and they looked good.

Cool, I live in Castle Rock, so both places are close. My wife will kiss me (or you :)) if I can find a nice one that cheap. Thanks.

I just checked them out on the way home ... they are $39 at Lowes ... the one in CR had 3, but they are fairly irregular and may lack a well defined leader. The best one is the also tallest and maybe 4'. The others were around 3.5' each.

BTW, the CR Home Depot had some blue spruce recently that were amazingly nice blue ... looked like a Hoopsi in color. Most of what they have is normal looking, but some of these extremely blue ones really stand out if you look for them. But they would be a risk for being too big, since they could just be normal blue spruce with good color. They also had a few Howell's dwarf tiger tail spruce for $29 ... I picked myself up the best one (by far), but there were still 1 or 2 remaining, but they were fairly small at 2.5 to 3' each. The one I got was 4'+ and had nice maroon cones all over it. Thats a neat smaller tree you could also consider. Very unusual for around here.

That nursery on a small tree farm a couple blocks north of the traffic circle on pine ln in parker had the $99 bakeri, which were 5', but better looking than the ones at Lowes. More money, but a bigger tree. Mine are doing fabulous ...

But for $39, you can hardly beat the ones at Lowes ... they just need some TLC and time.

Bakeri -- planted in April this year ... lots of new growth

Lowes got a few more Bakeri today ... saw the gal unloading them. These look better than the others ... a good deal for $39 ...

Has anyone seen any Bakeri's for under $100 this year?? Thanks for any info!

FYI

The Castle Rock Home Depot currently has $49 'Bakeri' that are nice and probably in the 5' range.

They also have some really nice $49 'Wates Golden' Virginia Pine that are easily 6' or more.

Scott