yes .. now ... which part did i answer .. lol ... scion is taken from branches ... sometimes it takes that branch.. a few years to understand it is now grafted as a leader ... until it understands such ... it must be trained' vertical ... once it understands.. no more staking .. the plant you got.. may or may not be at one with the requisite understanding.. in other words.. how the heck do i know about your tree ... it should be obvious ... from the pix at the link.. that sooner or later.. they catch on to the program.. and take themselves aloft ... as they are much taller than any human being can stake things ... so it does have an inherent ability to go skyward ... its simply a question of how long it needs to be trained .. you will find out.. as it extends its buds in spring ... if it starts going horizontal.. it needs to be staked .... but be very careful because they are very brittle at this stage.. and you can easily snap them right off ... [been there done that .. lol] but a few weeks later.. they can be so hard you cant unbend them ... and that is when you announce.. to the great unwashed masses.. that it is now a member of the 'weirder the better' club.. and you love it the way it is.. then 5 years later.. and 8 feet laterally.. it finally gets it act together .. and decides to go upwards .. idiot tree ... lol but i digress ... ken Here is a link that might be useful: link

Picea omorika 'Pendula Bruns' is generally considered one of the most attractive/coveted conifers in a collection. It grows upright, 12-18" a year and the branches weep downward strongly. Another key trait is that often specimens form odd angles here and there so that the tree has 'kinks' and bends in it as it grows skyward. It has the silver, blue and green colors Serbian spruce are loved for as well. I don't have any information about Kuck's weeping. -Will

Musical, Your story is an interesting theory, and perhaps has happened - who knows? Mine is a sad fact, I'm afraid, according to my friends in the trade. And Ken, yes, the nursery industry as a whole runs on rumor, conjecture, keeping up with the Joneses, and little-to-no market research. Why WOULD anyone grow 50,000 of something you didn't have an absolutely rock solid market for? And yet they do. People were banking on the housing boom to last forever, I guess. The Big Box stores are not responsible for the poor practices of the nursery industry, but they are darn sure making things worse by undercutting the market prices using these fire-sale practices. I do know nurseries that are plowing plants under or cutting them down and burning them. They would rather take a loss than saturate the market with plants selling for less than the cost of production. At any rate, some really nice plants are showing up at the Big Box stores now - plants that you would never expect to see there. Remember the thread about the Skylands someone found at a big store just recently? Keep your eyes peeled folks...

I agree and thanks guys for pointing me in the right direction, I really like the curves compared to my straight lines on the dog bone bed. The curves on the bed connecting the arbor will make my picea pungens 'hoopsii' and Picea glauca 'pendula' really pop! I like this much more than the round circle I had before that made these trees blend in. Dave perhaps this fall I will take measurements off my yard and work on this over winter. Right now I just want to get a basic scetch of what I think could look good. I won't be putting these beds in until fall 2012. Tonight I'll lay the roundup down for the arbor bed, mark the spot for the plants, etc to get it ready to plant in 6 weeks pending weather. A garden hose is definitely easier to use and lay out curves, I just use rope because the beds are very large. Just an example, the bed I have to the right of my house, I have about 400' of rope down to create this bed. The cost of rope is much less than the cost of hose. When I add those 3 beds to the back yard I'll lay out all 3 beds at once just to make sure I really like it. If I do one bed at a time with my water hose, I may not like the overall design once all 3 beds are in place. What looks great on paper could look bad in person and vise versa. I use 1/2 pink hose, it shows up pretty good and I can easily see the layout from the second story window. I took your design and modified the middle bed to force the design to stay out in the yard and not so close to the house. I couldn't have it wrap around the kidney bed like you have it only because it would have put the small bed to the far right of your scetch in the back deck. With this design, I should have around 20' of space. I may or may not make the middle bed arch out on the other side a little instead of a half circle. It'll depend on how much room I'll have.