My first thought when looking at this is that it's not a blue spruce (Picea pungens) but a very rough Picea glauca 'Pendula' (Which would be very cool if it grows out of it's current condition). The color of the foliage - especially in that first photo - and the way the lower branches look make me lean that way. Ordinarily, growers will stake the central leader for several years until the plant keeps it going on its own. This one looks like the stake was removed a little early or the leader broke or something. You could restake it when you plant it to give it a little help if you wanted. It might be interesting to just let it do its own thing too.

Looks like a tree with great potential and worth your $49 investment. Get it planted and enjoy!

Here is a link that might be useful: Picea glauca 'Pendula' 15-20 feet tall

Well, I wish I was better at identifying spruce trees from photos. Resin could take one look and tell us what this is. But without the precise knowledge needed to give a really positive ID, this foliage looks like P. 'pungens' (Colorado "blue" spruce) to me.

Also, the growth habit of the branches doesn't look like a galuca 'Pendula' to me. I have been growing one for about 10 years at my MD timberland place, and I bought another this year for my place in Winchester, VA. Both of these trees, and others I have seen, have their two years and older side branches growing at a much more pronounced downward angle. I really can't see this tree as being within the range of variation I could imagine for a glauce 'pendula.'

I think you are smart to give this tree a go, as I suggested when you posted about it earlier--what do you have to lose? If it doesn't turn out like you may now imagine, what have you got--maybe a pretty tree anyway. And if you are really disappointed, you have lost $49. Well, maybe I should not speak for you not knowing your financial situation, but my comment is "big deal." I would take that kind of gamble on a tree any time!

As for the leader--I would wait. Just leave it alone for two years and see it it replaces its leader on its own. There may be a slight crook in the trunk, but that will be entirely gone in three or four years without you having to do anything. If it were a glauca 'pendula' then some staking would be a good idea, but I really don't think it is.

--Spruce

spruceman is right about this not looking as a P.g.'Pendula' *should* look. Especially the closeups of the foliage. I'm really curious as to what this is - it certainly is unusual. Maybe it is a seedling P.pungens with weeping characteristics and you have a one-of-a-kind plant that you will want to propagate once it is established and it's true character shows itself. Or, maybe someone will ID the thing and we'll all smack ourselves on the forehead. :^)

love the comments ... keep them coming folks!

It really does look like a picea pungens on some level (to me) ... but the weeping branches seem unusual.

It's a Norway Spruce (Picea abies) cultivar - both the leaf arrangement and shoot colour match Norway Spruce perfectly, but are wrong for Picea pungens and P. glauca.

Resin

Picea abies 'Reflexa'.

Dave

If it is a 'Reflexa' you will have to stake it and continue to stake it as it grows up, or it will almost certainly flop over and grow on the ground as a kind of mound. You can do some web searching and find pictures of how people have trained this kind of tree. Often these 'Reflexa' NS "trees" are sold as P. abies 'pendula' and any references to how to train those will apply to your 'Reflexa', if that is, indeed, what it is.

But I am not sure. The angle of the branches does not seem quite downward enough to me for a 'reflexa'--but then I can't claim to have any certainty about this. Also, regular NS trees often have a strong weeping habit, although one so young exibiting this degree of weep would also be a bit unusual. But if it is a non-'reflexa' weeper, you may have something that will be especially beautiful. I am especially fond of the more weeping specimens of regular NS. The one cultivar I know of that has been selected for this is P. abies 'Pendula Major', but I have never seen a mature one.

--Spruce

I'll tell you what I know about growing 'Reflexa'. My only knowledge about these conifers is based upon the two I have growing the last 10 years.

If they are staked as young conifers to grow in a vertical direction that is the way they will grow otherwise they will grow in the prostate form. Sometimes they will reach 3-4 ft high when older but still maintain the prostate growing position if not staked.

When staked to grow vertical for 3-4 years the stake is usually removed and they will continue to grow upward but not straight. The main leader will twist and arc in different directions. The side branches are a mix of weepers with some of them arcing and curving back up as new growth matures. Go back to the Am I watering my Weeping Norway Spruce to much for a visual an you can see what I am referring too.

I have been successful in growing my other 'Reflexa' to have a straight trunk. It continued to grow straight off the stake 6 years ago. Only last year I had to reapply a 2 ft. stake to the top of the main leader as it took a decided bend and tried to revert to its natural growing habit. My only reason for doing this is it is grown close to the house and I want it up past the roof line.

Bunkers has a young plant but I can already see the main leader taking that tell tale lean to the side. It's on the move to do some weird things.

Nice full conifer. I would keep it and see where it goes. Give it plenty of space to do its thing. The $49.00 is a steal. Most go for $150.00 and up at larger nursery's.

Dave

Enjoying your analysis a lot.

Here is my guess now that you have redirected me into the picea abies direction ...

How about Picea Abies 'Weeping Blue'

The comments about the skirt seem relevant to me. I also feel like there is a blue green color not really shown in my pics.

http://www.pahls.com/library.cfm?plid=71&sq=type%3DEvergreen

http://www.richsfoxwillowpines.com/Web%20Albums/Foxwillow%20Pines%20Photos%20Picea/slides/Picea%20abies%20Weeping%20Blue.html

Several descriptions from various sites:

WEEPING BLUEÂ This one is quite unusual, it is a blue Norway Spruce that even has a great weeping habit. It also provides us with one other excellent trait, it will produce a nice skirt at the base of the plant to add even more interest. Quite rare!
z4

Weeping form of Norway spruce with blue cast to needles. Rare.
Full Sun z4

Upright form of Norway spruce with blue, pendulous branches forming a flaring skirt.

Dave:

Thanks for the clarification about the growth of P.abies 'Reflexa'. You have grown them, so you must know. I got much different information on-line, but I have expressed my frustration with the kind of bad/contradictory information I am finding about all the weeping NS cutlivars.

Bunkers: possibly a blue weeper--interesting. I bought what I was told was a blue weeper a number of years ago, but I am now convinced it was something else. If I could find one I would give it another go.

I am now looking for NS 'Inversa', 'Frohburg', 'Blue Weeper', 'Reflexa', and any others that have the potential to be upright growing weeping NS trees. I am tired trying to figure out which will really grow upright. I have plenty of room now and will buy them all and in multiples, stake them, if necessary, until I die, and see what happens. I wasted too much time trying to figure out how they would really grow and which was the best. No more fooling around!

--Spruce

Photo link for spruceman.

Well, while trying to research the 'Blue Weeper' ... I found a few places that defined it as a inversa with bluish needles instead of green. But then more places seemed to describe it instead as a more upright form with blue/green and pendulous branches and a skirting habit.

How much room should I give this tree? I'm really unsure on what its eventual size might be. Keep in mind, I have a short growing season here ... May to Oct ... and lousy soil.

i dont see how you could get a named variety offered by foxwillow .. at lowes ... why would someone go to all that trouble of grafting a named variety .. and then 'give it away' to lowes ....

i do understand how you could get a seedling that mimics reflexa ....

does that make sense .???

does your show any indication of being a grafted plant???

ken

Hi bunkers,

"WEEPING BLUE This one is quite unusual, it is a blue Norway Spruce that even has a great weeping habit. It also provides us with one other excellent trait, it will produce a nice skirt at the base of the plant to add even more interest. Quite rare"!

I don't know how "quite rare" they are. There were two in our local nursery last year. I purchased one. Thinking back I have never seen this cultivar offered by any nursery in my area before.

Here is a photo of mine for reference purposes.

Dave Picea abies 'Weeping Blue'
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{{gwi:738299}}

That looks a lot like mine, just glancing at it. Yours is heathier. The angle of weep seems about the same.

Ken, I got it @ Home Depot, same difference. It was in a big batch of colorado blue spruce ... and sold as such. They really don't sell any variety ... just austrian or blye spruce this year.

But when I saw this one come in ... it clearly wasn't the same as the others. My only guess is that whomever loads these up at the tree farm (or nursery) for HD ... was probably a lower skilled person and probably loaded it up thinking it was a colorado blue spruce like the others.

That Picea abies "Pendula Major" posted by RCSmith (Thanks!) does not look too terribly unlike a "normal" P. abies to me. Good looking tree.

The P. abies "Weeping Blue" could be fantastic at maturity. It reminds me of an earlier post I made here about seeing what looked for all the world like a P. abies, but with blueish foliage, outside of Land-O-Lakes, Wisconsin, at the Bear Trap Inn. Anyone else remember that discussion?

So, will this "Weeping Blue" normally require staking to achieve uprightness? I've gotten a little confused about this point along the way.

+oM

Bunkers:

Thanks for the link to the picture of a P. Abides Pendula Major. I had seen that picture but doubted that it was really a picture of Pendula Major. It is nice, but I have at least one or two NS on my own property that have more of a weep and overall are much more attractive than this. So I wonder if that picture was not just fed in from some "file photos" because it had some weep a little like a Pendula Major is supposed to have. But maybe the tree looks better in person. I have a 25 foot tall Pendula Major and it is "kinds special" at this stage. I am not entirely disappointed so far.

I found a spectacularly weeping NS a few years ago and made two attempts to have someone graft it for mewhy these attempts failed is a long story, including what I believe was a mix up of scions by the person I had do the grafting. And, tragically, the owner of the tree had it cut down, so it is lost forever. But there are other trees out there that I wish some one would propagate. After my failed attempts with this one, I guess the only solution would be to learn to do it myself, but then I would need some equipment, a greenhouse of some kind, and some training. I guess I have too much else to do.

Tom:

First, as for the stakingI have been confused about this for years, but I think I am finally beginning to understand. At first, knowing nothing about specific conifer cultivars, and nothing about the development of conifer cultivars recently grafted, when I bought something and it was upright, I thought it would just grow upright. The first several I bought just flopped over and I just said, OK, what the heck, I guess I got a bad tree or the wrong tree. These things did not come with any instructions for staking.

But here is what I now understandplease, folks, if I still have it wrong, chime in. Some NS cultivars are prostate growers. They will only grow as high as staked. Many of the NS cultivars sold as Pendula" will grow like this, but not allthere is a real mixture sold under that, as I understand it, incorrect cultivar name. It is intended to designate a growth form that properly should be indicated by a f. before the name in place of cv.

OK, some other cultivars, such as Inversa "blue weeper and perhaps Frohburg and Reflexa will, or "may" eventually grow erect on their own if staked for some indefinite period of time. Now here is the cause, I think, and it is only my opinion, of some of the confusion about how these specific cultivars grow. When grafting is done, the scions are at different times taken from different parts of the plant. If a leader is snipped off for scion wood, it will usually result in the grafted tree assuming erect growth on its own faster than if a cutting is taken from a side branch or some smaller branchlet.

But even this doesnt explain all the variability in the amount of time it will take for a P. abies Inversa for example, to begin growing erect on its own. There are other factors, such as growing site and probably an element of chance or other subtle unpredictable factors involved. These things can simply be finicky. The bottom line is that some of these cultivars which can eventually grow upright on their own if staked, will sometimes need a very, very long time to assume that erect growth. As a result, I think some people who have grown them and seen them continue to need staking for many, many years, have assumed that they would never grow upright and are perennial prostrate growers. My searches on-line have led me to nothing but contradictions about which NS cultivars can grow erect on their own and which will not.

Also, TomI remember vaguely the blue NS you mention above. Could you explain/describe it again? I am very, very interested. I am thinking of trying to start a kind of project to search for possible NS trees for propagation. Maybe some tree that would be like the P. abies Pendula Major, but better--or some other kinds of things. I may set up a new topic about this soon.

--Spruce

Hi Spruce,

"When grafting is done, the scions are at different times taken from different parts of the plant. If a leader is snipped off for scion wood, it will usually result in the grafted tree assuming erect growth on its own faster than if a cutting is taken from a side branch or some smaller branch -let".

I totally agree.

This photo of a Picea orientalis 'Nutans' has been staked going on the 3rd year. A side branch graft that was heading toward horizontal growth pattern which I did not want. This is a beautiful conifer when grown in the vertical. I prefer leader grafts if I can find them. When you order you never know what's coming. A little time and patience and you can grow your conifers as you like.

Dave Pice orientalis 'Nutans'
{{gwi:738300}}

Not to hijack the thread, but Dave what is that round leafed (shrub?) to the left of your first photo of Picea abies 'Weeping Blue'? The leaves look orbicular in the photo.

Dave:

Thanks--I have been an embarassingly slow learner in this area, but finally I am "on my way."

I have been growing two P. orientalis 'Nutans' for several years now. They are gradually getting taller as staked (one is about 4 1/2 feet now), but no leader yet. I got them from Suncrest Gardens in PA and saw what I was told were the parent trees--really, really beautiful erect but irregular weepers. Ah, patience! Patience! Patience!

Actually, one of the NS grafts I got from the wonderful NS weeping tree, now extinct, that I tell about in my post before this, is beginning to look like my struggling 'Nutans', but is growing more or less erect on its own. I may, after all, have something from my efforts to graft that tree, but not what I expected. I am eagerly awaiting what it will do this year.

--Spruce

"I have been an embarrassingly slow learner in this area, but finally I am "on my way."

Spruce, in spite of all the knowledge we acquire over the years there always seems to be more out there if you search for it. I hope I never quit learning. Come to think of it...not possible.

Dave

Hi kamal,

I have two. I am sure you are familiar with the common name: Smokebush.

Dave Cotinus coggygria 'Golden Spirit'
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Cotinus coggygria 'Grace'
{{gwi:738302}}

Spruce

There was a duck pond outside the supper club, visible from the bar. At its' center was a little island with a spruce tree. The tree was middle-aged, not a babe, but not full grown. What struck me about it was the blueish foliage. Not Hoopsii blue, but bluer than the typical dark green of NS. It also had a rather reddish trunk. The overall effect was very attractive.

Now here's the problem. This observation could not have been made more recently than 1980, more likely '78 or '79. I was very tree-aware back then. In fact, the reason we were there was because I had a summer job at a Forest Service tree nursery just over the border in Upper Michigan. But........for whatever reason, I did not make a positive ID at that time. I sure would now! I don't recall cones either. Not saying it had none, just that I didn't check them out. Silly, silly me ;^(

At any rate, assuming that tree is still there, one could go to the Bear Trap in, outside of Land'O'Lakes, and make a positive dtermination as to just what it is.

I rarely travel that far north these days, especially with my land being so much closer to home. But..if for any reason, I were in the vicinity, I would def. go have a look.

+oM

Did the tree have weeping branchlets? Weeping a lot? I am not sure I can remember all the spruces I have seen and the bark color, so maybe this is not a positive ID for NS, but reddish, and very finely flaking reddish bark is typical of some NS trees at the age yours was, and is usually--maybe almost always--paired with a weeping habit.

As for the foliage, there is a range of color variation in NS that I would not call exactly blue, but which one time caused a forester up here to confuse the more whitish colored NS with white spruce.

Ah, the trees we have seen and "lost," or at least can't get back to see very easily. I remember one very remarkable NS tree I saw a few years ago--before I became interested in special cultivars. You won't believe this NS tree. It was in the back yard of a rural home where there was a country auction. The tree was very, very broadly pyramidal, and here is the amazing partthe side branches were very, very large and extended very much parallel to the ground with no sweep. This tree was probably about 28 inches in diameter, and the lower limbs that stretched out so amazingly horizontal were really, really thick and longthey must have been 8 inches, maybe one to two 10 inches in diameter. And they stretched outward for what must have been 20 feet or more. Can you picture this? It is hard, I know. I never saw anything like it before or since--nothing like it in a NS or any other tree, for that matter.

Now where is this tree? I wish I knew. It was somewhere on a small back road north of US Route 40 where it crosses the line from MD into PA. Now that seems precise enough, but I could drive all those rural roads for a week and maybe not get back to that spot.

Well, there are other special NS trees I have seen and think should be graftedmaybe I will find some excuse later to describe a couple more.

--Spruce

P.S. I am at my timberland now and spent the day thinning in my NS groves. Im back!! I havent felt so strong in a long time. I thought of you and your new NS groves. One day they will tower like minemaybe even more so. My spirit played and danced in the tops of these towering trees today, gliding among the high curtains of wonderful green weeping foliage!!

Spruce

Sounds like an excellent day!

Re: your comments, the tree in question DID have a nice degree of pendulousness to the branchlets, IIRC. And like you, I've seen other NS with this nice reddish bark coloration. When viewed up close, they are indeed small bark flakes. The odd growth form of the tree you describe further reinforces the statements you've made before, that NS is particularly varied among conifers in this aspect. I saw another big one today with the odd "wolf branch" thing going on. The branch in question being nearly as stout as the main leader.

Spruce are starting to green out here now. We've been about 5 degrees below average for this time of year throughout the spring so far. So things are a bit slow, but the coolness, along with adequate moisture looks to be favoring a good start to the growing season for conifers. I'll be up at my land tomorrow spraying alfalfa around the trees with glyphosate. We couldn't spray ahead of time this year as we didn't own the land yet last fall, so even though we pre-dug the planting spots, there's a LOT of vigorously growing alfalfa roots to contend with. Good thing I'm well-practiced at spraying around desirable plants! I've done just a ton of that.

Take care.............+oM

I know this is pathetic ... its been 10 days since I bought this tree, and its been on the North side of my house, kind of protected from the wind ... and I've been buying and planting others trees like an addicted fool ... much to Ken's delight.

So I just noticed today that there is a big 'ol birds nest in the top of Mr Weepy ... no bird in it at the time, but its obviously newly constructed and "occupied".

So can I proceed to plant this tree or should I hold off?

Thx,
Scott

Plant the tree. The birds will build a new nest in no time and have no trouble raising a family, and probably another family later in the summer.

--Spruce