Blue spruce cultivar for narrow spot? zone 6b, Mass
dlk555
3 years ago
Hello - I have a spot along my foundation (see below, to the right of the chimney) that I'm looking for a vertical accent, and would love to plant a blue spruce. There used to be an enormous pine there that we had to take out. There is about 7' of room side to side and front to back, and about 10-20' of vertical space. I know trees will keep growing but I'm trying to pick one that will take a longgggg time outgrowing the space.
I was thinking of Blue Totem or Iseli Fastigiate but was then nervous about them being TOO columnar and narrow. Does anyone have any experience with whether these eventually get wider than 2-4'? I was then also thinking about Wendy, Filip's Blue Compact, or Edit/Edith for a more pyramidal shape. Another that interested me was Picea glauca 'Blue Wonder'.
Does anyone have any suggestions or thoughts? Or experience with any of these? Thanks!!
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Comments (17)
tsugajunkie z5 SE WI ♱
3 years ago
DeanW45
3 years agoRelated Discussions
Colorado Blue Spruce: color vs statue
Comments (12)i can not speak to your heat and zone .... as i am life long z5 handicapped ... the girards peep are just great peeps.. great value for price ... the only caution i might make.. is to nearly bare root anything you get.. no matter from who .. and find out if the plant is root bound in the pot ... untangle or prune to reduce future problems ... below are the pix i promised ... in closing.. for 20 odd bucks.. plant one if it thrills you.. if in 10 years it is a problem .. get rid of it.. most likely.. you will blow more per year on a coffee rather than the 2 bucks over ten years ... no matter which plant you choose ... good luck ken here are some pix 2006 2008 with growth chart .... and some closeups .......See MoreTall, blue & narrow...
Comments (33)lp- Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! What I would give to have land like that, the rolling areas, natural contour, etc... Then add the rocks, I'm assuming those as natural? or have you brought those in? Then to top it off, a log cabin!!! I'm envious!!! The most contour I have on my property is a natural ditch running between the house and the barn...About 18" worth of elevation change...I've had to create all of my "rolling hills", and rock walls, and "natural exposed rock areas" AND try to make it look natural in the process. I love log homes. There is a log cabin about a mile down the road, 5 acres, with a pond, it came up for sale about a year after I bought this house, I was so close to putting mine up for sale and buying it. You've done a great job. As soon as I get a camera I'll post some of my pics. Eliot...See MoreHaving Problem with a Dying Blue Spruce in Nashville
Comments (16)In my opinion, any nursery offering the standard commercial form of this species in the Piedmonts and plains south of the Mason-Dixon or Ohio River valley (which is all that is ever offered; nobody yet has a special resistant clone or hybrid) should be shunned. Trees should NOT be 3 to 10 year annuals. The last time I went back to my childhood neighborhood in Northern Virginia, I noticed that all of the old blue spruces were either dead or horribly sick looking. Even in the suburbs of Philadelphia, many of them do not look good although due to the generally higher levels of horticultural stewardship there they at least get removed if they look awful. In the highland towns of central PA you can still find ones that look OK - although they are not always trouble free even there - anywhere summer averages stay in the low 80s. If I were willing to be a more public persona I'd go on some kind of crusade to reform American residential landscape planting practices. I'm sick of seeing hideous, sick or weedy trees in suburban lots. There's no FDA-equivalent PTA (plants and trees administration LOL) to say "hey, this plant causes long term problems, don't use it in your area" and apparently, a complete lack of nurseries having any gumption to tell people "I"m not going to sell that, it doesn't do well here, here's an alternative". Maybe horticulture needs to be tought in schools as a part of basic home economics...I mean, really basic, like, how not to get into credit card debt. "If you notice a tree looks like crap in 95% of the yards in your area, don't plant it." How hard is that for people to understand? (But that's why I compare to the FDA, since most people do not have the science education to understand Rx drugs. Apparently it IS hard for most people to understand. So it's mostly an indictment of the in-it-for-the-quick-money nursery and landscaping industries. Of course, I don't actually think there should be a "PTA", it would probably just be a revolving door with Picea pungens pushers in "big nurse" - the wholesale nursery industry!) I haven't actually lived in a residential area in the UK for many years (I took a summer semester there once), but if I use the more recent memory of visiting the admittedly somewhat posh town of Rye, England...I now think to myself, if this had been an American town, 1/3 of the trees would look sick or ill-suited to the climate. In other words, part of the picturesque quality was merely the avoidance of horticultural disgust by not having to look at sickly or ill-planted trees. Just taking Cecil County as an example, no, obviously you will never have a English-style gardening culture here as you do in tony pockets of the US like Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard. That's not what I'm asking for. Just wave a magic wand and get rid of: blue spruce, white pine, bradford pear and leyland cypress, and it would look A LOT better around here....See MoreNarrowed it down to these conifers...
Comments (16)If I were in 5a and had a damp spot I would have the trio of Tamarack, Taxodium and Metasequoia. Probably one species tree and onle fu fu cultivar of each. I have a Metasequoia "Ogon" in more sun than it sounds like your spot has in zone 6 and it never burns btw. It grows fastsr than I thought it would but your could may slow them down. Edit: how damp is the site? Its tough to describe. Grass grows there? Can you mow the day after it rains usually? Is it squishy when you walk year round?...See Moresam_md
3 years agodlk555
3 years agoplantkiller_il_5
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agoplantkiller_il_5
3 years agoEmbothrium
3 years agosc77 (6b MA)
3 years ago
whaas_5a
3 years agoEmbothrium
3 years agotsugajunkie z5 SE WI ♱
3 years agodlk555
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agoJust an update that I ended up planting an Iseli Fastigiate Blue Spruce. Hopefully it will do okay over time! Will be working on redoing the rest of the bed in the spring...thinking of using some dwarf ninebark, potentilla, inkberry and some other stuff that I already have in other parts of the yard. Thanks all!
Embothrium
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agodlk555
3 years agoL Clark (zone 4 WY)
3 years agolast modified: 3 years ago
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