Oh, this old thing?!

That is spectacular! You guys are making it hard to be satisfied with my few sweet little conifers - when you show these trees I never would have known about.

Unfortunately in our area this tree gets ugly on the inside, as do blue Colorado spruce and blue Rocky Mountain juniper cultivars. More specifically, the fir goes bald, the spruces lose needles to bugs and grow algae, and the junipers grow algae - we are not able to maintain the spectacular appearance these trees produce east of the mountains.

Our region does have a few older blue forms of Juniperus virginiana that are attractive. This is of course a moist climate adapted species, unlike the other three. But also unlike the fir etc. you typically can't walk into a retail garden center here and find any of these for sale now.

Thanks for the head's up....so much to learn! I'll just have to admire the pics here.

Too bad they don't do well here, Olychick. I've never seen a good looking one here in western Wa.
I'm envious, Ken. Now I know how you feel about trees we can grow and you can't.
Mike

Have you ever checked out what Abies cones look like inside? This is an Abies concolor 'Blue Cloak':

The older needles on Ken's tree have the lost the pale blue also, perhaps interior baldness is in the future for it as well - depending on why, specifically they get empty on the inside here (maybe it is a bug that is not present in USDA 5). Planted examples of cold climate conifers like firs and spruces may look good for many years here and then become shabby, as though the bugs, climate or pollution (true firs tend to need clean air) somehow didn't get to them before then.

The Abies cones always fall apart before I see that, Sara. Beautiful.
Thanks!
Mike

"The Abies cones always fall apart before I see that"

That's actually an unripe cone, broken open before it falls apart ;-)

Resin

Yes, exactly. Green cone broken open in late May.