Don't know for sure, but I'd think A firma should be able to take any z6 winter once it was established.

I'm sure there is an Arboretum closer to you, but the Arnold Arboretum, just south of Boston has written extensively on which Conifers do best in New England. There is an absolutely massive Abies firma specimen there planted in 1933, so it's certainly hardy here. However, Charles Sargent, director of the Arboretum (1874-1927) said of Firma "although it is very hardy in Massachusetts, environmental stress prevents it from assuming the beautiful proportions it demonstrates in Japan"

On the other hand, homolepsis is considered to be the most well adapted for to this area, after concolor "in contrast to many other firs. It is hardy to Zone V. Charles Sprague Sargent, writing 70 years ago, re-marked on how well Abies homolepis and Abies concolor flourished here in their early years. They have continued to do so."

Boston is z6, but our climates are slightly different. Colder in winter and summer, maybe slightly less humid. Not sure the difference is enough to matter, I'd check with arboretums closer to you, just to be sure.

Any group 4 fir should do well for you in NNJ 6b:

Group 4 firma, homolepis, recurvata, pindrow, gamblei, chensiensis, holophylla, beshanzuensis [kawakamii].

with the possible exception of the tenderest collections of Abies pindrow: but the ones in the US don't seem to have that problem. There was a 15 footer at Dilworth Nursery in Oxford, PA - looking strikingly subtropical in a field of many other conifers - that surely saw many nights below 0F. Mine, both larger more established and smaller, were completely unfazed by 3F and 1F during the polar winters.

If you only have room for one fir up there I'd definitely go with something other than Abies firma, as it lacks one of the things that make firs charming: foliar fragrance. In my experience all of the other firs in that group have at least a little; A. holophylla and A. chensiensis are probably the "next worst". So that would be Abies homolepis, given your choices. I actually don't have a vivid memory of checking that one for fragrance at Longwood et al, but feel like I would remember if it were a dud like Abies firma.

Of course make sure you are getting a seedling and not G_d forbid a graft on a western Abies!

Thanks everyone. So all in all you guys would recommend going with abies homolepis? Foliage fragrance is a big plus for me as I love the Christmasy smell :) but I guess I'm more worried about which will do better in my environment. Sometimes our summer gets super not. Up to 100 degrees but no more than that. And with global warming getting worse and worse, climate will only get hotter wouldn't it? So if I want to grow homolepis long term, say in 50 years our zone has increased to 8a. Now that would kill the homolepis wouldn't it. That's one of my major concerns about growing homolepis

So David, other than fragrance reasons you wouldn't advise against getting the firma for my zone?

No, like SC77 said there are many A. firma in zone 6. Hardiness won't be an issue.

Firma has a somewhat distinctive habit/look (google images is your friend) and you can decide whether you want that as well.

BTW - IIRC* David Parks at Camforest has said Abies homolepis grows in North Carolina, and they used to offer seedlings. You will NEVER have to worry about NNJ being too hot for it, once established. If that's the one you can get, get it!

Given that firs are somewhat slow to establish and grow in their first few years, unless you have your heart set on a plant native to Japan - and I think that might be the case here - I'd go with ANY interesting Eurasian fir I could get in a somewhat larger size. I'd take a well grown 6' Nordmann fir (own root!) over a 1' A. ernestii or A. homolepis. I was lucky that when I got into firs, a nice mix of ones I found interesting were available in somewhat larger sizes locally or mail order. So I got 3' Abies pindrow and Abies recurvata from Forestfarm and 2 5' Abies firma from Tripleoaks. The former 2 are about 6' now, the latter 2 A. firma are 10'-14'. OTOH, a couple tube/liner sized A. pindrow bought around the same time, 6-9" tall, are now only 16-22" tall now! That's 5 years of growth where they've sometimes only grown 2-4 inches.

* - emphasis on the if!

Well I too think that homolepis will do ok in my climate..for NOW but I'm thinking about the far future in about 50-70 years. The earth is getting warmer and warmer and I suspect that our zone will be shifted up by one in those years. Thats my only concern. Or am I exaggerating too much on the global warming issue? Tbh, I really prefer homolepis but just the future climate issue is bugging me. And yes I'm looking for one native to Japan. But looks like you're a fir addict!

Thread bump - David, do you still feel A. pindrow is hardier than the z8 rating most catalogs suggest?

well...like, let's say almost certainly. My oldest/biggest was completely un-bothered by the polar vortex winters, as were the 2 smaller ones. Here the lows were 3F and 1F, but as you know, an extremely extended cold spell. It's possible I just got lucky and have a hardier one; OTOH, consider the fact I saw one of maybe 15' tall at the old Dilworth Nursery in 6b Oxford, PA before that place was foreclosed and leveled. Imagine a broad 2 acre field of rare conifer cultivars, some 30 or more years old. Things like 25' Picea 'Skylands'. This thing stood out: huge glossy long needles, bold texture, like a zone 9 invader in a field of zone 6 items. It must have seen below 0F at least a couple times. Unfortunately I was in a bit of a hurry that day** and didn't have time to ask them a lot about it other than "OMG that's an Abies pindrow, right!?" "yep" "it's been hardy for you" "oh yeah". Remember this would have been the first I'd seen with any size on it since I was in northern Italy several years earlier. I can't believe I didn't take a picture, but it's only 30 minutes from my house so I probably thought I'd come back next summer. And, actually, I didn't get a smartphone until later that summer...I'm a late adapter LOL. So I probably couldn't have taken a picture. Well, they went backrupt shortly thereafter and then whole place was razed, probably for McMansion construction. House, 2 barns...everything. I drove past the next spring and it was all gone. It's beyond sickening to think that collection probably ended up being chipped for mulch, but that's probably what happened.

** - it's a lucky fluke I drove by. They had converted to wholesale in the early 2000s, after being one of the best mail order nurseries on the east coast. I actually drove up there in the 1990s...I grew up in the DC suburbs btw. So I was actually just going to drive by, summer of 2012, and see what I could see from my car. Like "I wonder how their plants have grown up since I was last here". But they had a big sign out front saying "open for retail customers". After the housing crash caused commercial sales to dry up, they made a last ditch attempt to go back to being a retail nursery. But by that time, of course, they'd been forgotten by most of those fickle "retail consumers". They also no longer offered the variety that once had, because of course, generally wholesale customers don't need as much variety. They probably had at least 10 different grafted beeches in the 1990s, in 2012 I don't remember that they had any. The plants had grown a lot, of course. Really a shame someone like Longwood didn't come take some stuff.

BTW they were selling Abies pindrow, but they said they'd been grafted onto Canaan fir, so I passed...nevermind I already had 3 seedlings from Forestfarm!

So the question with something like this really becomes...what's going to happen in a 100 year winter like 1985? Because obviously they are new to cultivation in the mid-Atlantic. I'm willing to take the risk. I think, unlike monkey puzzle, people have not been trying to grow them - without much long term success on the east coast - since the 1910s.

Wow, this is pretty cool information David. I never even considered trying this plant, but I read one of your old posts that the Arnold Arboretum is also growing it. Sure enough... I looked and 1 specimen has been there since 1983 and is listed in good condition, along with another planted in 2008.... As far as I know, the arboretum doesn't do anything to protect plants, other than choosing the best micro climates available, so both of those plants have seen temps of at least -5, maybe lower, and sustained periods below freezing for as many as 15 days straight.

That is pretty incredible.. I think the zone rating on this one might need to be updated! I think I will even order 1 or 2 and see what happens. I'd say your plants will be safe in z7, even in a 100 year winter I doubt you would approach some of the cold temps that 1983 specimen has seen in Boston over the past 30+ years.

I'd forgetten about looking them up on the AA website, but, yeah it's cool they have it up there. If I ever get up to Boston I'll have to see what their specimens look like. I bet they got one in 2008 because that seems to be a few years after someone started importing seeds and it showed up at Forestfarm. I think I bought my bigger one in 2009.

"even in a 100 year winter I doubt you would approach some of the cold
temps that 1983 specimen has seen in Boston over the past 30+ years"

That's probably true. Though, of course, the elephant in the room is what does that tree look like now!? Presumably it isn't suffering the same syndrome as the mysterious monkey puzzle of Polly Hill LOL. It being in "good condition" and all. I would guess that, unlike Longwood Gardens, Arnold Arboretum isn't going to automatically remove plants that don't look like 100% flawless specimens.

It's interesting to me that of all those typical western Himalayan trees, only Cedrus deodara became quite popular in the rest of the world. The English seem to grow a lot of Aesculus indicas, but is it frequently grown anywhere else in the maritime climate world? I didn't see it on my AU & NZ travels, though I was there before it would bloom.

I had been meaning to get over there to see the new section of live oaks they are trialing, so I snapped some pics of the pindrow as well. It has a good amount of needle burn, and as with many of the conifers at AA, it's in too much shade. That said, I think it speaks well to the species hardiness. The location is actually close to the perimeter of property, so it's really not very protected, especially from wind. Guessing it's about 20' tall, narrow, maybe 6 ft across.

Hurray for Arnold Arboretum pictures!
The A. firma picture shows the cool tiered and tufted growth habit seen on the better specimens. Very nice and vaguely subtropical looking I think.

The yellowing needles could be typical autumn needle drop. All my firs do that to varying degrees.

But the needles on that A. pindrow look a little shorter to me. I will go take a picture of mine to compare. I'm sure it's still a pindrow but IIRC there might be a shorter-needled variant. At any rate, definitely evidence of being hardier than zone 8, to be sure.

Here is mine, wasn't going to spend much time getting the ruler to function as a scale because it was starting to rain. Longest needles are about 4 inches though there are many shorter ones. Now I think the appearance of theirs could just be a result of the rather poor spot they've afforded to it. Mine is in close to full sun.

it is dropping needles too

OT but who is still looking good over a week after my previous pic? Parrotia subaequalis. There are some of those at AA too. Did you spot them? It's a big place, maybe not!

That firma is a beaut.

Branch tips of Indian horse chestnut die back in colder Seattle winters. 1990 for instance. Same thing happened with California buckeyes in western WA. Doesn't kill or even necessarily spoil the trees, but it shows they are on the edge here (USDA 8).

UK ranges from USDA 7 in the central hills to 11 in the extreme southwest so it's like talking about, say, B.C. to Mexico as a single winter climate area - when not specifying what part of UK certain results have been gotten in. I always think of Christopher Lloyd writing he was gardening in a cold area at Great Dixter because it sometimes got down to 20 degrees F.

That is true, UK overall a bit milder than PNW US, but I think there is something else going on. I think there's just more of a culture there (in UK) of identifying and trying out these candidate rare plants, than anywhere else. Maybe if someone botanized a bit more in northern India, they'd find a hardier Aesculus indica. But there are not as many people to do it with the PWN in mind. Our catching up process is always two steps forward, three steps back. Also the UK (and Europe to a broader extent) had and have, those networks formed around the Imperial and Commonwealth worlds as people moved back and forth. Even Ireland: a friend of our family was the daughter of a doctor attached to the Catholic mission in Nairobi. When they moved back to Dublin in the 1950s, she said they took as many seeds as they could find to see what would grow in their garden. She said an acacia tree lasted for years. (I'm going to guess though that it wasn't a native Kenyan species, but an A. dealbata planted by the Brits) Or take a kind elderly lady in New Zealand, who spent 30 minutes showing me her garden, told me her daughter had moved to the UK. So that sort of movement is still going on. Being, physically, in a place where a rare (to your home station) plant can be observed, is I'm sure an important part of the process. I tend to me more moved by things I see "IRL" than in pictures or videos. Though perhaps with me, watching Peter Seabrook's segments on Victory Garden got the fire started, and actually going to Europe and the UK in 1993 made it engulf my soul hahahaha.

But in the final analysis, the cultures are just different, period.

For example thank goodness we had a Mike Lee running Colvos for a while, but in a culture where the consumption of interesting plants is maybe appealing to only 2% of the PNW populace, instead of perhaps 8% of the overall UK populace, one get the impression the nursery never really took off financially...and he had to 'retire' back to doing landscaping. Because he was running it, I spotted a little known (to me and most people) Larix masterisiana in his last catalog, and got one. I don't think anyone else has quite filled the niche he occupied yet. Maybe the closest is Far Reaches; also I'm told via a third party that the guy who runs Keeping It Green (where I got my Meliosma tree) was just in India collecting. So, again, tiny steps...an optimist would say we are getting closer!

Mike started growing plants to sell in 1972 I think - it might say on his web site. The closure of Colvos occurred because sales had fallen off in recent years, to the point where the amount of time it took wasn't justified. For instance simply having a stall at the big annual Florabundance arboretum sale - something that was also discontinued after many years, due to a reduction in sales - might take 30 man hours. On top of the time spent manning it, during the sale.

And his landscape architecture practice had on the other hand become more busy - in recent years he has been saying he is the busiest (with that) he has ever been.

Meanwhile the web site never to be mentioned by name here says the public is currently most interested in Japanese maples, roses, rhododendrons (I think), hydrangeas, tomatoes and peppers.

Previously I saw the Sunset Publishing web site reporting that the most asked about plants were Abelia x grandiflora - probably because of all the variegated cultivars being presented now - alstroemerias, tomatoes and bean plants.

Consistent with this one time during the last years of Florabundance I noticed the vendor that had them swarming around was one offering only tomato plants. This in the midst of multiple vendors offering all kinds of interesting decorative plants.

Britain has a history of being seen as the world's leading center of horticulture. (I saw J.C. Raulston claim during a talk in Seattle more gardening was actually going on in Germany, with just about every college of any size having a botanical garden). So most other places are going to appear less ardent.