hi mo ... welcome to GW ... you said: Given the large size of this tree, I am wondering what we can do to correct the problem.... and my simple response.. as founder.. and president of the WEIRDER THE BETTER CLUB ... is to enjoy it for its uniqueness ... and its oddity ... your only alternative.. is to cut it down and plant a new one ;... think of your kids.. or maybe better.. someone elses.. they are what they are ... and the less you try to change them.. the better off you are ... you try to guide them.. but sooner or later.. they are on their own.. and this very old tree.. is officially on its own .... there is nothing.. nay i say.. nothing you can do ... except ... visiting a head doctor and finding out.. why you want to change this tree ... it seems rather healthy.. as far as i can tell from the pic.. presumably leaning away from your house.. threatening nothing .... so why do you want to inflict your will on it ... ok... i am in a weird mood ... maybe in another 50 years.. it will be threatening the neighbor across the way.. and hopefully by then.. it wont be a neighbor you like.. lol ... nope.. i am of the opinion.. that it is.. what it is.. nothing can be.. nor need be done ... again.. welcome.. and i hope you have some sense of humor.. lol ... ken ps: these are forest trees.. they denude themselves down low, as they grow a hundred feet or so ..... as they make themselves into the telephone poles they are... it could use some limbing up.. IMHO ... and if that bareness down below bothers you.. there are a couple thousand smaller conifers we can recommend for a nice bed down around its trunk ... BTW.. anyone know what a red spruce is.. because conifers is the only place i know full latin ... in other words.. a proper ID might help define its growth habit ... i cant tell from these pix.. but could it be picea ruebens in maryland???? .. it sure doesnt look like Picea glauce nor P abies to me ....?????

Dave--(or anyone else?): I am really confused by these "weeping" Norway spruce cultivars. You show one picture of a 'Reflexa' that was not staked but is growing erect, then another picture of the same kind of tree that had to be staked. So, does this tree grow erect sometimes, and not all the time? As for the P. abies 'Frohburg' I find confusing statements. You say it needs to be staked or it will grow prostrate. Iseli nursery, and a couple of other places on-line, says it is an upright grower. Elsewhere I see a cultivar name P. abies 'Frohburg Prostrata,' with the 'Prostrata' sugggesting a flopping tree. So what am I supposed to think? Now in the Gotelli collection at the National Arboretum in DC they have two P. abies 'Inversa' trees. Both of these have picturesque irregular habits, but they are definately not prostrate. One, or I think both, have multiple erect trunks growing upright with severely pendulous side branches. I would like to grow one of these, but several sources say they will not grow upright. I have also seen another P. abies 'Inversa,' or so it is labelled, in the courtyard of the Winterthur museum in Delaware. This tree is also growing upright without any staking. And there is another similar tree growing prominently in the National Memorial Park in Fairfax, VA, but this tree has no label at all. I don't know if you have seen my postings in the trees forum under the topic "Large Willow" where I comment on the rampant confusion about golden weeping willows, but I may be even more confused and frustrated in trying to get information about the growth habit of these so-called weeping varieties of NS. I want to grow one or more, but what do I buy? And from whom? Are those I saw labelled 'Inversa' actually something that I can buy as 'Inversa," or is that an incorrect name? And this 'Frohburg' thing? Is there a 'Frohburg' that grows erect, and then another that is 'Frohburg Prostrata' that must always be staked--or which is more properly meant to grow along the ground. Of course, I assume that any of these that are potentially erect growers probably must be staked for a time, but from what I have seen with my own eyes (at the Nat Arb, and at Winterthur, and at the Nat Mem Park), at least one, and maybe more than one of these cultivars, can grow on their own after a period of time being staked, in at least some irregular erect fashion. So, is 'Inversa' one of these? Or 'Frohburg' or what? I have seen them, want one, but what one, or ones is/are it/they?? H E L P!! this is driving me nuts!! --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).

Pinetree: Did you try to explain all of this to me once before? I am not sure, but I remember we had a discussion of the summer shoot growth on one of my very fast growing (a lot of growth each year) white pines. I thought it was some growth that developed from a new bud, like an oak tree that puts out a second flush of growth after the initial spring growth. And I think you explained that this growth with the pine tree was different--that it was a summer elongation of the base of the bud that would be the basis for the growth of the following years shoot. Do I remember right? And is this what is properly called "lammas" growth? I think we also had some discussion of the "free growth" that I thought I saw on some NS trees after weevil attacks (maybe), and on some very young seedlings that seemed to put out new needles at the apex of their shoots without any evidence that I could see that it was an unfolding and extension of a shoot that came from any bud, whether that formed the previous summer/fall or had formed earlier in the summer. I can't remember exactly what you said about this kind of growth. I think you may have expressed some doubts about how I understood and/or described what I saw. Now what I was trying to describe in the post above, and incorrectly calling "lammas shoots", and what gnome posted a picture of, seems to me to be something different from the "free growth" I am describing in the previous paragraph. Now my question is, well, two things: first, is this growth that gnome pictures, and which I describe having seen on my own NS trees a few times, similar to what you described as happening with my special white pine tree (and a few others as well)--a premature extension of the basal elements of the terminal bud that would be the basis of the next year's growth, or is it something different? I think you are clearly saying it is something different. And if it is different, I think I understood from our previous discussion of white pine, that this kind of growth can't happen with white pine. And my second question is: if it is different, could it also be different from what I am calling "free growth." It seems different to me in that the free growth I have observed, at least in young NS seedlings, is continuous with the initial shoot growth--there does not seem to be any stage where the growth seems to have stopped and then resumed. It is more like how a tuliptree grows, unfolding one leaf at a time, than how an oak tree grows when it sends out a new flush of growth from a new bud after the elements in the initial bud have fully extended themselves. To summarize what I am trying to get at here--just how many kinds of, or sources of, summer growth are there, "technically" speaking? I am guessing there are three: Lammas shoots, free growth, and what gnome pictured and I described above--growth coming from the full extension of a new growth bud, like with an oak tree's second growth flush, followed by the formation of a completely new bud for the next year's growth. Well, when I started this reply I had no intention of making it so long. Forgive me, but I have a streak of curiosity about such things, but at the same time don't want to make a pest of myself trying to delve into technical issues. Generally I am a man who hates "delving," in any of the metaphorical senses this term may have. I am happy to delve under the surface of the soil to plant a tree. But as for "delving," in the more general metaphorical sense, I know am best off when I remain satisfied with very superficial understandings of things. "Delving," if that means penetrating the surface to gain a deeper understanding, has proven to be a frightening activity for me and has generally lead to confusion. So I do my best, usually, to avoid it when I can. --Spruce