Hi All!
I am attempting to buy from 3 to 5 ft Colorado Blue Spruce trees. If you can recommend a place where I can buy trees of such size that would be highly appreciated.
Overall plan is to plant those in Austin, Texas. Has anyone else tried this? Any luck?
Thank you for your help!
How many local nurseries have you called on the phone?
Actually 5 of them. And 9 state (texas) christmas tree farms.
And what were the results of those phonecalls? Did anyone sell the plant you want, or not? If NOT, did they explain why not? If you called actual nurseries (not places like Home Depot) and found that nobody sells these plants, it could be because they don't grow well in your area. Or, you might've just been unlucky and called nurseries whose stock isn't very complete.
Go to this web page and call these people. They should have someone on their staff who can advise you about whether the plant in question can or should be grown in Austin:
It's native to cool mountain climates, but has drought resistance -
- Here's some information you might find interesting :
"Colorado blue spruce is an introduced plant to the Minnesota landscape and this tree is very popular. Unfortunately for this species, popularity leads to stress related problems. Colorado blue spruce's native range is in the Rocky Mountains between 6,000 to 10,000 feet - a cool climate. While this species is said to be somewhat drought tolerant, Minnesota's drier, warmer continental climate places this species under a fair amount of stress"
Since the tree "considers" Minnesota a drier, WARMER climate, God knows what it will "think about" the climate in Austin,Texas.
It probably has a problem competing with the Minnesota palm trees....??
and from the Kansas extension service --
The most common reason for spruce decline is environmental stress. Simply put, Colorado blue spruce is not at home on the plains. Spruces do not like the hot dry summer conditions combined with the drying effects of the southwest winds. It is dry in the mountains but it is cool and dry, not hot and dry. The second problem spruce has in Kansas City is our extremely dry fall and winter conditions coupled again with the drying winds. The mountains are good, but there is plenty of moisture and much less fluctuating temperatures. Lastly, spruce suffers in our climate because of our heavy clay soils. During wet periods such as the one we are experiencing now the soils drain very slowly damaging the root system. Rocky mountain soils have low clay content and drain at a faster rate.
fwiw...
Amen to that. TAMU has one of the best hort sites on the Web. Here's a detailed zone map for Texas:
-- Karen
The Garden Gate
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