Picea pungens 'Glauca'

[AlainK]

Saw a thread (on another forum) about spruce pruning, or sthg.

Here where I live, Picea is a tricky tree to grow: they're mountain trees, get mist or dew or fog in the morning and lot of sun in summer, and deep frost in winter. Not in the Loire valley, famous for its roses, cherries and pear spirit:

But fifteen yeras ago, or was it twenty years ago, I sowed some Picea pungens 'glauca' seeds. People in America call it "Colorado blue spruce" I think, but I much prefer to use the scientific name for everyone to know what I'm talking about.

Here, the summer can be very dry and hot for weeks, so a lot of lower branches die. Here is one of the few I've managed to keep:

December 2008:

July 2011:

May 2016:

June 2016:

 

[JoeR]

Didnt see that coming! I like it. The apex throws it off though...


Did you purposely remove the jins?

 

[AlainK]

Did you purposely remove the jins?

Yes. More to come I'm afraid...

 

[Vin]

You made it look easy Nice work.

 

[M. Frary]

scientific name for everyone to know what I'm talking about.

Not everyone. I don't use the latin. I only looked at this because I know picea is spruce. Almost all threads with latin names don't get looked at by me. Unless I have nothing else to read. They sound pretentious to me.

 

[AlainK]

Not everyone. I don't use the latin. I only looked at this because I know picea is spruce. Almost all threads with latin names don't get looked at by me. Unless I have nothing else to read. They sound pretentious to me.

All right then.
But for those who are not native speakers, it helps. How many conifers are called "cedar" in the US, and how many are really of the genus Cedar? And knowing what species it is exactly is also useful since all species in the same family, or cultivars, don't always have the same requirements.

 

[AlainK]

The one above was sold for something like 20€ to a member of my club.

I had two left, one that I didn't really like and died, probably for lack of proper care.

This one is the last one I have. I put it in a big pot, not really knowing what to do with it. The bottom branches were weak, except one :

In August 2019. Rather poorly-looking, isn't it ?...



So I decided to keep only the first branch, and made a virtual to imagine its future :



I removed the wire last year, and this year I found it back among the brambles. The branch had resumed a horizontal position, and got thicker. So I used the biggest aluminium wire I had, and had to "guy-wire" it so it stayed at an angle. I removed the 2 or 3-yr-old needles and pruned some of the branches to have a better balance of the foliage. There's still a lot to be done, but it's taking shape. I'm so bad at maintaining conifers, I hope I can make something with this one (soil to bottom of 1st branch = approx. 20 cm - 1 (hand) span) :