Will, if you look at the wires coming from the mid-span and going down to the right and see where they disappear behind the tree. That spot is where it looks like the tree snapped off and the new leader started. I think it's worth propagating, especially if Don Howse is nearby. tj

Thanks for adding to the gallery guys. Seems a bit strange for me to keep posting to myself! :) Thanks for the compliments too, hearing it from conifer legends always makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. More more and more! This is madness!... Picea abies 'Suncrest'. New to me, a nice tight, bluish color miniature, bought at Coenosium Gardens. 'Gold Dust'. An unusually 'leggy' small dwarf with highly unusual colors as the new foliage eventually becomes more golden and mixes well with the older blue/green. 'Perry's Gold'. Pretty bright! New growth eventually reverts to a more dark green. This specimen is in almost full shade. Awesome! 'Vermont Gold' A sport from 'Repens' I believe, grows laterally into a wide shrub, new growth is delicately gold and burns in full sun here. 'Clanbrassiliana Stricta'. A bit more of a cone shaped dwarf. 'Nidiformis'. Common, available at many box stores and in my opinion, still a pretty nice plant. 'Hasin'. Doing some wierd things, I'd better take a look and prune back that barberry! Usually a super-tight miniature similar to 'Dumpy'. 'Malena'. A great looking small dwarf with unusual needle shape, mine received too much sun last year, suffered some damage and this Winter found a new home. 'Aarburg'. A twisting, weeping, chaotic 'Dr. Suess' tree. Saw it for the first time at Coenosium Gardens and had to have one. Eventually gets pretty wide(not too tall), but I think it will be happy enough here in 5-6 hours of sun. Picea abies seems to handle part shade very well. Many of mine are in filtered sun with 3-4 hours of direct sun. 'Gold Drift'. Only one of the best, a strongly weeping, fast growing tree essential to any conifer collection. More when I have time, please feel free to add some of yours. -Will

I've found western evergreen to be the one of the best sources for obscure cultivars, worth a try. Surprisingly I could not find a non pendula Picea omorika 'Bruns' anywhere, Bob Fincham even told me in an email that I most likely wouldn't find one and would in all likelihood need to get a graft. They had them in 1 gal and 3 gal at western evergreen! It pushed a tremendous amount of growth this year only a few months post bare-rooting/root surgery; it more than doubled in size (so many buds! so dense!).

The SNA a two hour drive from my place and It's still on my to do list. Spring is the recommended time to visit there. Guessing the bugs get bad by summer. Let me know if you're in the area. We lose many pine trees from insects, the pine bark beetle for one, this seems to be aggravated by dry seasons we have regularly during the summer season which puts the trees under stress which the beetles like. This is a picture of some Pinus strobus at a city park outside of town. You can see the sickly crown needles at the top, possibly pine bud worm. It doesn't always kill the tree outright but can. Once the tree is dead, it usually rots about half way up first, then snaps off in a wind. These trees are on the way out. From what I know from their history, they are over 100 years old, possibly 150.