Thanks to Dax for the inspiring photo - I can only dream that my little tree will someday soar like that. Dave, I'm confused about your comment. When you said "There are plenty of other offerings out there to give you that look..." what look are you referring to? Do you mean the leaned over to the ground look, or the upright weeper? I ask because I'm still learning about conifers (which is why I ended up on this forum) and am looking for information about different plants. I'm interested in recommendations from other keen plantspeople who have lived with and nurtured the gorgeous specimens I see in the books. Only experience will tell whether a plant really lives up to the glowing descriptions in the plant catalogues. I'm at a fortunate stage of life - kids just finishing high school. So, I have the time, energy & motivation to make my garden really special. If figure if I plant trees now, they will be my joy in the golden years. My preference would be to invest in conifers! So, if you have any favourites, please feel free to describe them to me in detail! I would love to hear.

Hi Ken, Thank you for the link, it is very helpful! I was planning on planting the tree in a bed surrounding our front porch, spreading rock around the base. My plan was to trim it to keep it at about 5 ft. According to this link though, it seems like the spruce might need more room to breathe and that I should spread mulch around the base, not rock. I've attached a photo of the area I was thinking about planing it in. I'm new to gardening, and haven't done a PH test on the soil. I live in Nashville TN and would describe the soil as moist but crumbly. It does not appear to have a lot of clay in it. Thanks! Mallory

Novaplantguy Great plant. I bought one that size for cheap last summer at Menards. I planted it last fall and it's doing well this spring so far. I also plant a few of my conifers in the gritty mix and have had pretty good luck so far. I did lose a couple last year, but it was before I found the below info on repotting evergreens. I was treating evergreens like decidous trees/shrubs... Sorry, for not putting up the link. I cut and pasted this from an email I sent myself after I found it last fall. "RE: Trees in Containers Posted by tapla z5b-6a MI (My Page) on Mon, Apr 14, 08 at 20:06 Generally speaking, the more natural genetic vigor a plant has, the better it tolerates root-pruning, but then comes along a plant like bougies that ARE vigorous but don't tolerateroot work well. That they (evergreens) do or don't tolerate it well, doesn't negate their need for root maintenance though, so I'll describe the safe way to root-prune the evergreens. The first time you do root work on your plant, and after depotting, remove the bottom 1/4 - 1/3 of the root mass with a pruning saw. You aren't going to bare root the evergreens, unless you know they tolerate it well. Instead, remove the soil from 3 pie-shaped sections from the remaining roots. These sections should be conservative in size the first time you undertake the pruning (until you're able to gage tolerance) and should only remove about 1/3 - 1/2 of the remaining roots. Concentrate on removing the larger roots in the wedges and leaving the smaller roots. Buttress roots remain. Add soil to the bottom of the new container so the tree will sit at an appropriate height and fill the wedges with soil. Use a wooden chopstick to settle the soil firmly around the roots & water well. Firmly securing the plant to the container to prevent movement of the plant in relationship to the container will fractionalize reestablishment time by preventing wind breakage of fine rootage. The next time you work on the roots, concentrate on cutting wedges from the oldest part of the soil/root mass, away from your most recent efforts. In this way, you can replace the old rootage & soil in 2 or 3 sessions over several years while keeping your tree root-healthy. The equivalent work on the above ground parts of shrubs/bushes would be called cyclic rejuvenation pruning, which is basically removing 1/3 of the stems (trunks) of a multi-trunked shrub/bush each year and concentrating on the most vigorous (removing the largest). This type of pruning completely rejuvenates the shrub over 3 years & insures the wood remains young and vigorous." I agree with Ken, keep it in the shade for a while. The SE corner of your home probably isn't that bad? The hot afternoon sun is what is really damaging for most plants that are newly potted. A shade cloth might help? Who cares what your neighbors think...

Bluespruce, As I told you, I received my 'Pendula' from the late Kas Koemans who was a famous Dutch conifernurseryman for about 30 years. He cultivated this 'Pendula' together with the 'Pendula Bruns' from the beginning on when all the other weeping forms were not in sight yet. For all those years he took scionswood from his own stockplants and that's why I'm so sure that I have the true one. I hope I answered your question now. If you are interested in some scionswood, please let me know and I send you some in the beginning of next year ;0)