This Blue Spruce was originally planted by my Dad in the spring of 1967 on a north facing red clay hillside. It stood there stunted without growing but a few inches until 1984, the year Tammy and I moved into this house. Dad and I dug it up along with a little white spruce and planted them next to each other here in the front yard. Both trees were less then 3 feet tall at the time. They lived and seemed healthy but continued to grow very slowly. In 2000, they were just about 6 foot tall. In hopes it would help the blue to grow, we decided to cut the White Spruce down to use as our Christmas tree that year, the year I worked on the Tree of Hope Capital Tree Project. The following spring the Blue Spruce finally took to growing, and has been putting on an average of over a foot a year.
In the last 8 years our little Blue Spruce has grown to be 18 feet tall and has become the beautiful addition to our front yard that we had always envisioned. :)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/christmas-card2.jpg)
WOW! She is beautiful.
If the house sells are you taking your tree with you ?
Merry Christmas
Now THAT is truly spectacular!
Must have taken AGES to put all that pretty white stuff all over it, and you got it so EVEN, too! :)
Thanks for sharing it!
Must admit, I'm interested in knowing how you're going to move it when you go Yoopering... :-\
asy :D
Our property has thousands of Balsam fir, Cedar and Spruce. It won't be a fair trade, but it will do. We all know that planting trees is a our gift to the future, so I'm OK with it. :)
A good size spade truck could move that no problem but paying an hourly to drive and set it would be painful .
Yes, its 3 hour drive from here to there, three hours back, and besides that, If we moved this one, we would have to also move the plum that was planted When Tammy's Dad died. We call the tree by name. Bob. The Dogberry tree, (Rowan, Mountain Ash) IT CAN STAY. :D
That's a nice Christmas tree for sure. Sounds like your blue spruce grows as slow as the ones I have. They seem to grow slower than the trees on my woods. They are probably the size of yours now, after being planted in 1984 or there abouts. They get lots of sun to.
I put in a blue spruce by my garage it was growing kind of slow got up to 4 ft. so I thought that it would make a nice addition to the land scape at the farm. Figured that in the fall i would transplant it . In the fall that tree was 10foot tall . It had set roots into the neighbors septic and was getting water and fertilizer every day that summer .The next year it was 15 ft tall.
That's a very beautiful tree. Thanks for sharing it.
It's just gorgeous.
I have two questions...
Could you grow one from seed?
and
Would it grow here?
;)
asy :D
We brought this Spruce south to some friends in Sautee, Georgia from our lot in Maine back in 2004.
It was mostly done as a surprise and experiment to see if it would take.
They sent me a photo today after I asked how it was doing. Their cat dwarfs it but it is still alive. Maybe it'll take off one day.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/13635/Bruce.jpg)
I planted some poor stock from a nursery, they didn't grow an inch a year for at least 4 years. Now they are starting to get leaders 12-18" the last year or two. Growing on good soil to up on the woodlot with nothing over topping. They seem to be real bushy not as open as the wild ones. I guess that is because of the tight whorls. You'd think the darn things were suppressed.
The Mountain Ash we put in was about 4 foot when we planted it, it stayed that way for the first 3 years then started growing about 4 foot a year. We have real deep sandy, gravel soil and I think it takes a few years here for a tree to set root, but once it does, look out!
Asy, I see that they grow blue spruce in the southeast parts of Australia. So far our tree has never produced cones.
In my instance it was the trees, planted beside some improved stock from the Provincial Tree Centre. Same soil. I didn't have many of them, just a bunch to fill in holes. ;) Trees plantations with container stock like these will usually grow right along as if they never were disturbed unless suppressed or on poor wet ground. One woodlot I recommended red spruce. It was dry and rocky and after the first season they looked like they were there for three years. Then the darn hare moved in and did a trim job. ::)