Nothing I see in the picture fits any disease of Norway spruce that I know of. That is the good news. The bad news is that I donÂt know what this is. There are three possibilities I can think of. First, some lawn treatment chemicals/pesticides. Anything that is supposed to get rid of weeds in a lawn can damage a tree. Two, sometimes some excess fertilizer, especially if applied during the fall/winter can cause a coniferÂs foliage to dry out too much if there is a stiff, dry, and very cold wind during the winter. The third and final possibility is that the tree is close enough to a road for some ice melting chemical to be blown onto the foliage. But if the adjacent tree is unaffected, this does not seem very likely. I think the odds are that your tree will be fine. You will know in just a few weeks--if the buds break normally and you get new growth, that will be a very good sign. I think the odds are heavily in fovor of this tree recovering and growing normally. --Spruce

LOL Ken... Thanks for not being Picea abies 'B1tchy' this time LMAO. You were fine :-) I've just returned back from work and I definitely am CRANKY! Had to deal with retail customers all day along with 'bodgit incorporated' co-workers, both who lacked in the 'common sense' department. Just call me 'Grumpy' especially having had no lunch too. Moan moan moan... Yep, I hear you on the tree size, HOWEVER, I have to deal with my 'war office' who wanted something large to block off our neighbors. I pick my battles, her wish was my command LOL. My back eventually recovered, my wallet is still recovering. Plus we both might have 'kicked the bucket' in a decade. Though I have taken to heart your advice already Ken (grin), most of the conifers that I am planting like a madman as I can afford them are 3 feet tall or less. Drooling over Conifer Kingdom's website, wishing I had a fat wallet. Ahhh.. cricket, now there is a real game that I thought Americans never had heard of. So.. when you say 'trunk' do you mean 'boot'? (grin). Nope, lawn has never been sprayed, if I did the millions of dandelions would die & there would be no lawn left LOL. The only treatment I have made to the lawn is Ferrous Sulphate, nope.. not to get rid of moss... but I'm at war with moles. Long story, in my past I was a Pest Control branch manager, well these moles have me beat... Iron apparently taints the taste of the bugs, probably murders the worms... but the moles allegedly eventually leave because they hate the taste of the grubs tainted with iron and follow my 'eviction notice' to the neighbors yard. Just trying anything before I purchase a Smith & Wesson 500. Call me dumb, but we drink our well water and I'm hesitant to use glyphosate for weeds or 2-4D for those dandelions. Sigh. I may break a rule if you convince me! I'm sure my paranoia on poisoning our water supply is unfounded. The mulch I will do, leaving a dead zone as you suggest, will get a truck load this weekend and buy a fence to block the neighbors instead of buying big trees! Will keep you posted on the Norway Spruce. Thanks Ken for your reply. Jeff.

NS is a very vigorous species. What you're seeing is one years (the current year) growth increment of the main leader. That's a good thing, and indicates the plants are doing well. Now if you will, imagine that wherever that new leader's growth stops, a new tier of side branches will grow next year. These branches will get very large and very heavy. Now it doesn't look like too much space between tiers I'll bet, does it? Completely normal and desirable. BTW, the white pine shoot tip moth Dax refers to is really doing a number on a bunch of NS I've got growing up on my land. One of my favorite trees, it is most bothersome to see these great new growth extensions, only to see them flat-topped after the larvae gets through with them. The good news? NS readily forms a new main leader from a side shoot. Only time is wasted, I guess you could say. +oM

The pic added by huggorm is not helpful to this discussion. Nothing remotely like that need be done here-as he himself does explain. Again, do as you please, but the doomers and gloomers here are going way off the tracks IMO. A few judicious pruning cuts would have that up and off your house in no time. Nor would it look ungainly. Now one thing to keep in mind-I have two-and especially one-very large, old arborvitaes-I don't know what cultivar but they look more or less like species except stay greener in winter.....and the seedlings thereof, which I collect regularly, grow unbelievably fast for an arb. In any case, the one in question is at the midway point of the front of my house, right adjacent to our front porch, so in a sense, badly out of scale with the house. These are big plants. But here's the thing: I like the tree more than I like the house and it provides a very nice, cool microclimate in warm weather up on that porch, holds uncountable birds and other critters, etc. So I'm not just thinking design elements here. And all of the attributes I'm listing for this big old arb could also apply to your spruce. I think another fallacy in play here is that one must always, everywhere, raise a tree up equally all the way around. Yes, I would normally do so too, but in certain cases-and this is one of them-an unbalanced approach can get you where you need to be. So in this scenario, more raising up would be done on the house side. Trust me, it can work.