From Dennis W. Fulbright, Department of Plant Pathology at Michigan State University: "We now know that a group of Phomopsis strains of unknown species are at the center of the current landscape spruce problems that we are now calling Phomopsis spruce decline. Normally,Phomopsis, a fungal pathogen, is only found on young trees in nurseries and on tree farms including Christmas tree farms. For some unknown reason, this pathogenic fungus has moved out of the nurseries and tree farms and is now causing mature tree defoliation, branch death and, in some rare cases, tree death." Seems some cankers are morphing and when I heard him speak in 2012 he indicated they found some odd DNA not quite matching the usual canker suspects. tj Here is a link that might be useful: Whole article

In my opinion, any nursery offering the standard commercial form of this species in the Piedmonts and plains south of the Mason-Dixon or Ohio River valley (which is all that is ever offered; nobody yet has a special resistant clone or hybrid) should be shunned. Trees should NOT be 3 to 10 year annuals. The last time I went back to my childhood neighborhood in Northern Virginia, I noticed that all of the old blue spruces were either dead or horribly sick looking. Even in the suburbs of Philadelphia, many of them do not look good although due to the generally higher levels of horticultural stewardship there they at least get removed if they look awful. In the highland towns of central PA you can still find ones that look OK - although they are not always trouble free even there - anywhere summer averages stay in the low 80s. If I were willing to be a more public persona I'd go on some kind of crusade to reform American residential landscape planting practices. I'm sick of seeing hideous, sick or weedy trees in suburban lots. There's no FDA-equivalent PTA (plants and trees administration LOL) to say "hey, this plant causes long term problems, don't use it in your area" and apparently, a complete lack of nurseries having any gumption to tell people "I"m not going to sell that, it doesn't do well here, here's an alternative". Maybe horticulture needs to be tought in schools as a part of basic home economics...I mean, really basic, like, how not to get into credit card debt. "If you notice a tree looks like crap in 95% of the yards in your area, don't plant it." How hard is that for people to understand? (But that's why I compare to the FDA, since most people do not have the science education to understand Rx drugs. Apparently it IS hard for most people to understand. So it's mostly an indictment of the in-it-for-the-quick-money nursery and landscaping industries. Of course, I don't actually think there should be a "PTA", it would probably just be a revolving door with Picea pungens pushers in "big nurse" - the wholesale nursery industry!) I haven't actually lived in a residential area in the UK for many years (I took a summer semester there once), but if I use the more recent memory of visiting the admittedly somewhat posh town of Rye, England...I now think to myself, if this had been an American town, 1/3 of the trees would look sick or ill-suited to the climate. In other words, part of the picturesque quality was merely the avoidance of horticultural disgust by not having to look at sickly or ill-planted trees. Just taking Cecil County as an example, no, obviously you will never have a English-style gardening culture here as you do in tony pockets of the US like Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard. That's not what I'm asking for. Just wave a magic wand and get rid of: blue spruce, white pine, bradford pear and leyland cypress, and it would look A LOT better around here.

You could give grass a shot, but even shade tolerant grass varieties need near full sun to be full, healthy looking. Growing grass ends up being more of a science than growing conifers. If you head over to the lawn forums and post, they will recommend you get a professional soil test (not big box store DIY test) and see how the Ph, Organic Matter, and micro/macro nutrients look. Your local extension office will do the soil test for about $10-$20 bucks, or you could got to a national lab like Logan labs. In addition to those variables, the tree is probably consuming the vast majority of the water in that location and the roots may be near the surface, limiting the grasses root zone. Probably the best solution would be to use some sort of shade tolerant ground cover informally, combined with rocks. I have also seem Moss/Rock configurations under trees that look pretty nice.

I see decent concolors in my area -- not many are planted tho. One requirement would prb'ly be well-drained, "light" soil (not heavy clay). Here's one at a nearby Maryland state park in sandy mountain soil on a well-drained rise. Prb'ly the best fir for some east US areas (balsam and fraser firs might be as good for more northern, colder areas), but not for soggy clay soils.