ken: "regardless.. just order it .. what can they possibly tell you to make you NOT want it???? you are enabled.. and addicted.. just order it ..." See how you are! Yes, I do seem to be addicted. And I have this whole fenced in area in the back of my small yard where I should be growing vegetables, but there are all of these conifers.... The "Rochester Pendula" thus goes on my list.... Barb - you are getting some nice trees! You will like that 'Horstmann's Silberlocke;' it does need some protection from our intense afternoon sun (at least that has been my experience) but it seems to like it here; mine has been doing fine for over two years now (I got my tree from Timberline Gardens in Arvada.) I like Forest Farm but sometimes buying from Oregon nurseries you end up getting plants that expect to have warmer winter conditions and a lot more moisture than we do here in Colorado. I went looking for bamboos there one year; the guys at the nursery laughed at me when I said I was looking for bamboos that could survive in Zone 5! I hope you let us know how the concolors do. You have 2 acres to grow things on! Oh what I could do with that amount of land! (Probably end up in the poor house....) By the way, Dax, ken and Nate are the enablers, not me - they just lead me astray, and I am apparently all too willing to be led! :-D Holly

I read with interest this posting with pictures showing curvatures in the trunk of the tree describing it as 'noodle' and 'funky structure'. Could someone explain please how such repeated curves are created? That tree seems to be at least 20 ft tall, and is still doing it. Is it simply weak wood? These are permanent kinks in the stem. I have a 5ft Picea orientalis 'Skylands', 8ft Picea omorika 'Pendula Bruns' and 4ft Pinus contorta 'Taylor's Sunburst' which twist similarly after planting them in 2010 and 2011. Skylands seems to be straightening out, I staked Pendula Bruns. All 3 turned away from the sun the first year, Pendula Bruns is still doing it. Bernd

Duplicate post From other topic on spruce: Thetman: If you are considering fir trees, I would broaden your search beyond fraser. You can look through the Forest Farm catalogue and see lots of firs. Two that I would begin any recommended list with would be Nordmann and Holophylla, but there are others that may be just as good for you there. You could set up a new topic, explain just where you are, your climate, etc., and get new recommendations. There are also some very hardy Deodar cedars--wonderful trees not planted nearly enough. Fast growing, very graceful, tough. OK, I will add just a bit new here. I have some fraser firs at my MD mountain site. They are OK so far, but still very young and only about 8 feet tall. But as I say above, there are what I think could be much nicer firs you could try. Fir trees in my opinion are a great unexplored/undiscovered area here in the US. It is a big waste that more aren't planted. I have about a dozen varieties growing here near Winchester, a hot and dry Z6, and although most are still very small, they are showing great promise. The Abies holophylla at the nearby Virginia Arboretum is an absolute stunner--after 70 years or so it is 80 feet tall and well over 2 feet DBH, and as lush as any native tree. Nordmanns do well there also. But there are many other firs that may be great possibilities--I am trying a bunch, but I am not sure if anyone else is. In 20 years I could give a good preliminary report. Anyway, even though I don't know how they will all turn out, it is fun trying them all. I have my eye on maybe two or three more to try. But, the Holophylla is almost certainly a big, big winner. The only doubt I might have is soil. The ones here at the arboretum are growing on a poplimento soil--a very deep soil of mostly limestone origin, but with a fairly high component of clay in the B horizon, and moderately to strongly acid. Mine are growing on the same soil. You can learn all the details about this soil on the web. But my guess is that the A. holophylla will do well on lots of soils. --spruce

While this thread was pointlessly bumped, I wanted to thank Dean for sharing that study. I have 2 A. pindrow and they've been just fine here. Also showing enough root rot resistance _for northeastern Maryland_ (elsewhere, YMMV) A. recurvata A. alba (there's a huge one at Longwood Gardens, and a big one at National Arboretum) A. nordmanniana Failures: any western US fir on its own roots - I've tried several of them; although my house came with a Concolor fir that was 40-50' tall, it was in slow decline the whole time and died after one of the mega-wet spells we had in the early 2010s. If you had to chose one as slightly tolerant for the eastern US, it would be that one. And they are common landscaping material up north like the NYC and Boston suburbs. Abies delavayi on its own roots Btw to 'Cliff' ungrafted Noble Fir, Abies procera, is 100% no go for anywhere in the southern US other than the highest mountain towns like Boone, NC. Will probably die the first year of root rot, as did mine.