Well, if your neighborhood is anything like mine, it may be because of the popularity of Norway spruce cones with squirrels. My neighbor is of Norwegian descent, and when he moved in years ago, he lined his horseshoe shaped driveway with a row of Norway spruce. They are now mature and make large cones, but the local squirrel population does a bang-up job of harvesting and eating them, kind of like corn on the cob. The ground under the trees is littered with the torn up cones consisting of loose scales and the "core" of the cone. He has had a few sprout under there, and he has moved them to his back yard to start a new generation. I would love to find some intact cones for floral use, but I almost never do.

This may, however, just be a local phenomenon, because it appears from a quick google search of "Norway Spruce Invasive" that Norway spruce IS considered an invasive species in some regions, such as New England.

Yeah, I'm sure squirrels get some of the seeds, but I don't think that accounts for the totality of this lack of regeneration. I've done extensive reading on this species-it''s just about my favorite tree-and even having done so, nothing jumps out as being the prohibitive factor here in N. America.

As to the placement of NS on invasive lists, yes I've seen that too, including here in WI. Having spent decades battling real problems with real invasive menaces, it makes me sad to think even a dollar's worth of effort would be spent on the problem of "invasive" NS. I know of an area in far northern WI where NS has indeed become naturalized. It is some of the finest forest land I've ever seen, and the presence of these big trees is if anything, an enhancement of what was already there. Now that's partly opinion obviously, but come on.......we've got buckthorn, garlic mustard...things that can prevent ALL regeneration of ANY other species, once these junk plants get going. NS isn't on the same page at all. It's not in the same book.

Sorry.....that bothers me a great deal. I do understand you mentioned it for the purpose of showcasing the fact that the species does in fact regenerate in some cases and some places. Long-term members on this board and the trees one know that for better or for worse, I've got a lot to say about "invasive plants" and "native restorations" and related topics!

+oM

I agree -- as many N spruces there are, I've only rarely seen any seedlings. It's not like they don't produce seeds -- I've seen birds feeding on the seeds in droves when they're ripe.

Maybe somehow the seeds aren't viable, or the typical ground conditions aren't appropriate. Or climate. I just don't know.

I don't know the answer but that is a very interesting question. Norway Spruce has been commonly planted in the midwest United States for more than a century... why such little regeneration? Too hot of summers? Man altered environment? Too many of some types of mammals/birds and not enough of other types to provide balance? Conifers simply cannot compete unless in the right habitat conditions?

I wonder if we had a zombie apocalypse, would all the weeds take over then start to evolve seperately on each continent, or would tree populations pretty much grow back the same as they were before human civilization?

I have no helpful answer, but I do get seedlings, sometimes in places that are quite inconvenient - cracks in pavement, against the foundation, in the middle of other trees. I've managed to successfully transplant maybe a half dozen, which are between 4 and 6 footers now.

The best place for me to find them is in old pots with potting soil or some such soil mixture left in them that I have just left untouched on my patio for some reason (laziness?). I've got two nice ones now that'll be replacements for two old Norways that will shortly need to come down.

They pop up in my yard from two neighbors' mature trees. I've given plants away and have about six plants currently growing.

tj

Clicked on your post ready to volunteer for something. The only volunteers of anything conifer around here are red cedars and scrub pines. I'm still ready to volunteer. Hank

Heh, well thankfully, nobody seems to ruffled by my editorializing. I have found a few, and as some of you have indicated, they are usually in some weird spot under a rose bush or something. And Duluth......the fact they sprout in bare "soil" in those pots is interesting. I know more than a little about various forest regeneration issues and amongst the conifers, there are a great many examples of their need for some disturbance-fire, clear-cut logging operation followed by discing, etc. to clear away the duff layer and allow the tiny seeds to make good contact with bare mineral soil. And yet, even where this is clearly happening, NS still remains shy quite often.

I've read a number of research papers out of Europe-mostly E. Europe, about the regeneration of this tree in its native haunts. Even these papers mostly leave me scratching my head.

Thanks
+oM

I wonder if in a normal garden setting, seedlings might be trampled, dug over, covered with mulch, etc. When they first emerge they're so incredibly tiny, like a bluish-green bent two-pronged fork.

I think I've found more P. pungens volunteers than those of NS. Still not a common thing by any means. Just as an example of the weirdness of some tree regeneration, I remember in Forestry class many years ago, learning that black spruce commonly is found sprouting in the muddy ruts of logging roads. So that helps explain the last 150 years or so. Wonder about the previous millennia!

+oM

Where I grew up in NE Ohio, NS volunteers are pretty common. I have noticed them in many different places. I have never seen a volunteer P. pungens though in that area. The most common naturalized non-native conifer would have to be Pinus sylvestris, followed by P. nigra, P. resinosa and Larix decidua. Just recently i found a volunteer Taxus x media.

Where I grew up in NE Ohio, NS volunteers are pretty common. I have noticed them in many different places. I have never seen a volunteer P. pungens though in that area. The most common naturalized non-native conifer would have to be Pinus sylvestris, followed by P. nigra, P. resinosa and Larix decidua. Just recently i found a volunteer Taxus x media.

Thanks Sal. I agree-Pinus sylvestris is a rapid and able colonizer of non-native locations. That I do see quite a bit of.

+oM

Norway Spruce regen is pretty scarce here too, though I do see odd ones here and there. Nothing like as abundant as Sitka Spruce regen, which can be really dense. Thickest regen of all though is Tsuga heterophylla, which can be like a carpet (pic below).

"I remember in Forestry class many years ago, learning that black spruce commonly is found sprouting in the muddy ruts of logging roads. So that helps explain the last 150 years or so. Wonder about the previous millennia! "

Mammoth's footprints, before they became extinct?

Resin

Ah!! The wooly mammoth/black spruce forest community! I done forgot about that.

+oM

Why so few volunteers.......?
Picea abies seedlings die during drought and excessive heat because it's a boreal tree but larger saplings if they are watered regularly can survive in hot and dry environment.
I transplanted some Picea abies saplings into my garden and during first years they were struggling.Because the soil is sand it gets very dry during summer months but now I have watered those spruces once a week and they are thriving.
I have four spruces in my garden which produce cones and there are also some large ones close by and today I searched for spruce seedlings but found none ,instead there vere hundreds of maples and dozens of oaks which had germinated naturally.

Marko

Here is a link that might be useful: Picea_abies#Range

Thanks for the additional commentary, Oso. I know you don't know me but I tell ye true, there's few folks on the planet, I'd guess, so adept at seeing tiny, tiny things on the ground, like newly sprouted spruce seedlings, as I. So while I agree that many volunteer plants do indeed fry out when things get too hot and dry, this fact does not account for the situation I'm wondering about. I see brand new seedlings under many other conifer species, larch, pine, etc. But almost never those of NS.

+oM

wisconsitom, orso may have something. The only place I've seen any N spruce seedlings was in a very moist, sheltered "cove" in western MD near a stream under the deep shade of large, planted N spruces. Because of the shade, there was no grass/weed competition, just needle duff.

Interesting Beng. But I get what he's saying. What I'm saying is that somewhere, at some time, probably many times, I've been in a place where those conditions were being met also. And I saw none. Or mostly none.

Still, it could be that such conditions need to hold over the long haul, not just episodes of suitability. NS is, to my thinking, much more a denizen of cool and moist climates at heart than say, Scots pine. Or at least, it has greater tolerance to say, wet conditions, than some other commonly planted conifers.

+oM

Here are some (low quality mobile phone) photos of a Finnish native spruce forest in the continental (climaticly) southern Finland.

And of course I had to post a photo of a small Sequoiadendron giganteum growing nearby.

Usually spruces grow in moist and shady places and pines in drier soils where little else grows.

Marko

Wonderful pics, Orso. And of a wonderful location, I might add. Love to see stands of conifers like that.

Now I'll tell you about a conifer that comes up with abandon in my part of the world-Thuja occidentalis. Those things sprout with extreme ease. Up where my trailer sits in the woods, it is a clearing surrounded mostly by T. o. and seedlings are just everywhere, thick as a carpet. Quite the opposite extreme. Canadian hemlock too seems to regenerate with ease in the woods around there. If even a small percentage of those make it to pole stage, they're going to be one of the most common conifers in that neck of the woods. Unless that gawd-damned adelgid does get here.

+oM