Ken, I have read you rant about maples many, many times. May I plant maples and not worry about their effect in 5, 10, 20 years? ;) (I don't actually want a maple.) I know you caution against them for multiple reasons..... so I'm just trying to see if I should have concerns about the spruce roots as well... ===>>> you miss the wisdom of it all .. i will yell.. I DONT CARE WHAT YOU DO IN YOUR GARDEN... you take what i say.. and use it.. or file it appropriately ... all i can tell you .. is my experience ... and that is key .. because i am not telling you what other wise sages have written or posted on the WWW ... i speak from my personal experience .. in my personal gardens ... if you want to make the same mistakes i made.. ALL THE POWER TO YA .... i learned by making mistakes ... you feel free to do the same ... you said: Picea glauca Pendula (which grows at least a foot a year. I know I have space for the tree above ground.............. what happens below ground is another story. :)) ===>>> this one grows straight up ... are you spacing it for 20 foot plus potential ... one foot by 20 years??? or is the placement too close to the house ??? but Picea abies Pendula.. BUT .. there always seem to be a big but around.. lol ... you train it to the height you want.. and then it grows one foot per year... STRAIGHT DOWN ... i dont have time right now for pics .... one is a true weeper.. as per Pa pendula... the other.. glauca ... is a vertical leader plant.. with all BRANCHES weeping down.. making it rather thin ... [BTW.. this is another rant of mine.. where one term describes two growth habits .. pshaw] if you google the latin on each.. and flip to the IMAGES side ... i bet you will now see the difference ... and you will run across a very large glauca that you hopefully will understand that you can not plant within 20 feet of the house or so.. which would rule out your space that i am envisioning in my mind ... how about a pic???? ken

Although small ones can be had cheaply if of any size when purchased the 'Conica' probably cost quite a bit more than a typical seedling might have. More will have been paid for the vegetatively propagated cultivar, so letting it revert to the typical growth would be throwing away the extra money spent to get the dwarf compact form. And it take years for such reversions to overwhelm and kill the original dwarf growth, an ugly effect prevailing until then. Japanese cherry trees grafted on sweet cherry and older hybrid rhododendrons grafted onto Rhododendron ponticum are frequently seen here with the rootstocks having been allowed to grow up through and surpass the fancier named varieties stuck upon them. Sometimes when these are asked about and it is advised that the rootstock sprouts be removed the reply is that they are going to keep them anyway. This seems like a pretty bad idea, especially considering how much grafted Japanese cherry trees cost (grafting of hybrid rhododendrons is no longer common). Sweet cherry is pretty much a weed species here, if someone set out to get an unselected seedling (or rootstock cultivar, if any are being used) of this they could get it a lot more cheaply than buying a grafted cherry tree.

i second getting rid of the picea pungens ... use the money for removal rather than treatment.. which will fail ... you dont mention how big they are ... im thinking it might not be a shade issue.. but a water competition problem .. depending on size ... and i am not sure how much you should be digging.. anywhere near those utility boxes ... how about you stand in the windows where you might be gazing out in winter ... and define a spot 8 or ten feet away .. and install a section of pvc fencing or trellises.. or some such .. to block your sight line.. but be working further away from the utilities ... the sticker indicates they already dont appreciate you planting next to it .. so why plant more???? in other words.. get out of the box you are sitting in ... to fix your problem ... and the problem is a sight line.. not the pungens.. or planting more right on the box ... ken https://duckduckgo.com/?q=section+of+pvc+fencing+to+hide+utility+box&t=ffcm&iar=images&iax=1&ia=images

A Man, if you plan on doing much propagation of any plants - from seed or from cuttings - you will need to learn how to do your OWN research! It is a bit lazy on your part to expect us to do all the work for you :-) And you will learn and retain much more if you have to work at it a bit. Use any search engine you like - most of the online world finds Google more than adequate. Just enter the appropriate search terms (like Picea abies seed propagation/Norway spruce seed propagation) and voilà - over a million possible sources at your fingertips!! https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=picea+abies+seed+propagation&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=norway+spruce+seed+propagation&client=opera&hs=cDR&ei=eeMtYrA_1b_Q8Q_nkZq4Cw&ved=0ahUKEwjw39Shi8P2AhXVHzQIHeeIBrcQ4dUDCA0&oq=norway+spruce+seed+propagation&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAwyBQgAEKIEMgUIABCiBDIFCAAQogQ6BggAEAcQHjoICAAQCBAHEB46CAgAEAcQBRAeOgUIABCGAzoECCEQCkoECEEYAEoECEYYAFAAWNEyYL1paABwAXgAgAFIiAGBBpIBAjEzmAEAoAEBwAEB&sclient=gws-wiz