Colorado Blue Spruce is an popular conifer, for whatever reason. Symbol of the west, maybe? I think they look stupid in most non-arid landscapes. South of Philly their performance in all but the sandiest and or most well draining soil is very iffy. I know of a C-level executive on the Main Line who keeps planting large B&B CBS and Douglas Fir to try to bring a bit of his native Colorado east, and they keep dying. It would probably be better to start with smaller container specimens. OTOH I recently saw a couple smallish ones doing reasonably well in the Virginia Beach area. But the soil there is sandy. You are correct that Norway spruces are more common, especially north of DC. In the suburbs of Balto. & Philly you see a lot of somewhat ancient NS, you hardly see any blue spruces that tall and many of those look like cr-p. I don't think of ERC as being a tree of the "north lands". As you drive up 95, they are a common roadside weed in the DC area, through lower NJ perhaps, but I don't remember them seeming that common in interior New England or in the high elevations of Pennsylvania or NY, which are surprisingly cool in summer. (Binghamton, NY, is only a little warmer in summer than SE England...but of course more like St. Petersburg in winter!) For example on the highway from Wilkes-Barre to Binghamton there's an amazing monoculture of white birch with a stunted understory of Kalmia. A few hemlocks too. You feel like you are driving near in a boreal area but are thousands of miles away from one of the poles, and not very elevated either. Some of the highest ridgetops were still getting snow in early April when I made the drive. Anyhow I don't think they were ever commonly planted anywhere on the East Coast. I think if they were there, they were allowed to remain in a garden. I could be wrong about that...they were sometimes sold as christmas trees in "olden times" so maybe some of those were B&B'd and planted.

Hi everyone, Well, I don't know what the heck happened, I posted a message last night. But I don't see it now...hummm... Anyway, I can't remember exactly what I said, but it was something about how we have at least another month and a half before we'll thaw out up here...grumble, grumble, grumble... Ugh! And I also said that I was going to mail the seeds to you today Barb. Which I did, so they are on their way to my neighbor to the east! :-) That's about it from me. Can't wait to start seeing all the great seeds everyone will be getting!! Amy

Many on your list are right, Jayeanne, but not all so we are still playing the game! I'm adding 2 letters today "C" and "Y." _ l o r _ n c _ , South Carolina _ d n _ , Kansas _ _ _ l _ _ , Louisiana C _ _ r l o t t _ , North Carolina G _ n _ _ _ , New York _ _ _ _ s o n , West Virginia C _ l _ n _ , Ohio _ l _ c _ , Texas J _ _ n , Nevada L _ _ r _ l , Montana _ s _ l _ y, Michigan _ l _ _ _ n d _ _ _ , Minnesota L_ _ r _ l , Delaware L _ _ , New Hampshire _ _ t _ _ n y , Connecticut And so sorry to all, I forgot to include an "L" in the name for Ohio when I added the "L's". It's in there now. Jayeanne, I hope you feel better soon and hopefully the doctor will think everything is healing fine. If it's a spider bite, those are scary! For our swap: Vina and Jayanne will send to each other. (Jayeanne has received and has mailed to Vina.) Heidi and Katie will send to each other. (Both have received.) Jeanne will send to Annie. (Annie has received.) Annie will send to Janine. (Janine has received.) Janine will send to Jeanne. (Jeanne has received.) Have a great day! Jeanne

Yeah, this will never happen. But, not for the reasons you think. The sort of land elk need is now protected. Not for the beneficial ecological / environmental purposes, they have been prioritized for mega solar companies. Albany has put a target on the backs of Hudson Valley areas like Greene & Ulster Counties, specifically to clear cut vital habitat, forests, meadows, farmland and so on to make room for industrial scale solar farms that render the earth, dead, useless at the end of their roughly 25 year life-span. That's the future of NY State as long as Albany law-makers have their way.