Colorado blue bandbox (Picea pungens) is one of the most popular mural plants in the country. Deadening-growing blueish spruces have been given pride of place in many front end yards for much of the final century. These trees take slowly outgrown their space, giving them an unfair reputation for being too large for the mural. With varieties now bachelor for diminutive size, unique shape and intensity of color, it's much easier to find a blue spruce that will exist a perfect fit in almost any garden.

Botanical Name: Picea pungens var. glauca
Common Name: Colorado Blue Bandbox
Light Needs: Total dominicus
Hardiness Zones: three to vii; eight to ix on the West Coast
Height & Width: 60' loftier and twenty' broad
Growth Rate: Slow to medium

The Colorado blue bandbox is native to the fundamental and southern Rocky Mountains, where it is often found growing at loftier altitudes. This region receives most of its rainfall during the summertime, with relatively dry winters. Information technology's difficult to replicate these weather condition, which means that garden-grown bluish spruces in many areas tend to have shorter lives than they would in their natural habitat.

Although selections available at garden centers are intensely blue, these colors are more irregular in nature, with an occasional silvery or particularly blue specimen shining out from a crowd of olive-green trees. Breeders select plants that have bluer or silver needles. This silvery bluish color is actually a thick, waxy coating that protects new growth from ultraviolet harm.

Growth Habits

The directly species unremarkably has a pyramidal habit that slowly becomes more spear-like in regions with absurd, dry winters or more than irregularly rounded in most other areas. There are many varieties of different forms available, including weeping, rounded, and multi-stemmed trees for topiary.

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How to Use in Your Landscape

The bright color and precipitous texture of this tree tin brand it a little difficult to place. Pair with plants that have contrasting colors to make blue spruce really pop in the landscape. Plants that have wine-red leaves (like 'Diablo' ninebark) or bright yellow foliage (such as 'Goldmound' spirea) are the kind of plant partners that will make bluish spruce stand out.

For a more blended and serene look, institute blue spruce with companions that have silverish, royal or obsidian hues. A few examples of good complementary plant partners are silver-leaved and violet-flowered Russian sage, catmint, and 'Black Scallop' ajuga.

How to Plant Blue Spruce

Constitute Colorado blue spruce in a sunny spot that has rich, moist but well-drained soil. Dig a hole the aforementioned depth as the container and roughly 1.5 times equally wide. Gently remove the plant from its pot, then use a sharp spade, planting knife or hand saw to shave off whatsoever outer circling roots. Side by side, discover the root flare where the start woody roots jut off from the stalk. Carefully remove soil from the elevation of the root brawl until you observe the root-shoot junction. Place the plant in the hole with the root flare at soil level. Backfill the pigsty with native soil, and don't meliorate with compost, manure or potting soil. Exist certain to break upward whatever clods into fine fragments. Give the blue spruce a good, deep watering, then encompass the soil surface with a healthy layer of weed-suppressing mulch.

Blue Bandbox Care

Irrigation Needs

Although Colorado blueish spruce is more drought tolerant than other spruces, it does need consistent water (from rain or irrigation) to thrive. Water regularly during the offset season or two while the tree roots are getting established, then as needed during dry periods.

If you are watering past hand, exist sure to soak the soil around the tree rather than the needles and stems. Not only is this a more efficient use of water, it will also limit the spread of foliar diseases and preclude water from diminishing the blue cast of the needles. If y'all program to utilize an automated irrigation system, drip irrigation that delivers water directly to the soil is a better choice than a sprinkler organization that will get water on the foliage.

Health Bug

Unfortunately, blueish spruces are susceptible to many pest and disease bug, including bagworms, spruce gall aphids, spruce budworm, spider mites, canker, and many other health bug which tin can crusade needles to turn chocolate-brown and autumn off. Symptoms for many of these problems can be like, non merely to one another, but also to symptoms for cultural problems like also much shade or improper watering.

It's especially important to accurately place health issues because pest and affliction problems oft call for specific treatments. If you suspect something may exist amiss with your Colorado blue spruce, achieve out to your local canton extension service for help identifying the problem and finding a solution.

Stressed trees are at a college risk of serious health problems, which means that the best manner to foreclose an disease is to make sure your Colorado blue spruce has the right amount of water, nutrients, and sunlight. In many areas of the country, particularly the Southeast and Pacific Northwest, it's not unusual for 20- or 30-year-old blueish spruces to go more susceptible to health problems and naturally pass up. In this situation, information technology may be more applied to simply supercede the aging bluish spruce with a new improved variety.

Pop Blue Spruce Varieties

There are many, many types of blue spruce on the market place, with new selections being introduced all the time. Hither are a few popular options to consider for your garden.

  • 'Blueish Diamond' – pyramidal selection that may reach 12' x 6'
  • 'Blueish Kiss' – a beautiful, squat pyramidal diversity that will grow to 12' x 10'
  • 'Glauca Pendula' – develops either a weeping or groundcover habit, depending on nursery conditions; may achieve 4' x 8'
  • 'Hoopsii' – maybe the bluest blue bandbox on the market; pyramidal habit with dumbo branching; up to 50' x xx'
  • 'Iseli Foxtail' – unique twisted branches make this a distinctive specimen tree; very wearisome-growing tree that may attain 15' x viii' in x years and 50' ten twenty' at maturity
  • 'Thompsen' – particularly striking silver blue needles; this relatively slow grower will eventually reach 40' ten twenty'
  • 'Fat Albert' – brusk, wide stature and silvery-blue needles; tiresome-growing and pyramidal, it can achieve xv' ten 10' and is beloved as a living Christmas tree

Dwarf Blueish Spruce Varieties

  • 'Montgomery' – dwarf multifariousness with a distinctive cone shaped habit; upward to 8' x 4' merely ordinarily pruned shorter
  • 'Glauca Globosa' – this incredibly popular variety is valued for its stellar powder blue needles, rounded, mounding habit, and extremely tedious growth rate; 3' 10 4'