Not much luck here in quebec(z 4b).As soon as it gets higher than the snowpack, it's having a rough time...

Dan

Thanks Dan. Have you any idea of the seed source for the plants you have been testing? As with many western conifers, there seem to be two distinct races, one from more coastal, lower elevations, and one from higher and colder regions.

+oM

I'd think northern origins of interior Abies grandis subsp. idahoensis from southeastern British Columbia would be well worth a try.

Resin

Hi Tom, the local garden here in central maine has an old specimine on our campus must be 30ft tall it has been down to -17 degres this year.

Tom, they were seedlings from Peel's nursery and I don't know if they were the coastal or the interior strain. The new shoots of last summer were exposed recently to some nights of -30C, I'm eager to see the results in the spring...

Thanks all. I'm always on the lookout for some kind of fir to plant at my tree farm, even if just a few. That idahoensis sounds like the one.

+oM

Unless it's a quite slow-growing individual a 30' grand fir is not an old specimen. Here on the coast it is a sort of conifer cottonwood, growing very fast and tall (in times prior to settlement) but not having the same structural strength as many other conifers. Bluffs along Puget Sound have stands of them with all the tops broken off at the same level, with Christmas-tree-like replacement tops perched above the breakage points.

"Unless it's a quite slow-growing individual a 30' grand fir is not an old specimen. Here on the coast ...."

There's a huge difference in growth rates between coastal subsp. grandis and interior subsp. idahoensis; before this was realised, the "unpredictability" of growth rate was the main factor that held up commercial forest planting of Grand Fir in Britain. A few plantations had rocketed (50m tall in 50 years), but most hadn't; only later was it realised that the fast ones were from Vancouver Island seed, and the rest from east of the Cascades crest. The most unfortunate factor was that seed from east of the Cascades was far more readily available (much cheaper to harvest). The interior trees grow about the same rate as Colorado White Fir, and have the same very slow growth (or even slower) in the first 5-10 years.

Resin

{{gwi:640070}} I dont know wich this is but it was planted in the early 60s. Looks like a fir on steroides, it must be mature i can see remnants of cones at the top. It is in a micro climate near a river but every six or seven years we get into -30f here checks back alot of plants.

Yes, you would expect one from the interior to be the type able to survive back there and to it not grow as fast as ones from the coast. Pointing this out does not contradict or invalidate my point.

Photo shows a nice specimen still with the Christmas tree appearance of a young tree. Mature it is not. Some want to call a 10 year old tree or shrub a mature specimen. That is why a mention it when a young or small example is called mature or huge, it simply isn't true or apt.

Thanks for added input. The obvious only choice for my location would be the interior version.

While my "big three" Norway spruce, red pine, and hybrid larch are all legitimate timber species here, and that is one, albeit not the main, reason for my planting, any firs I introduce would just be for variety's sake. So this idahoensis type could fit the bill.

+oM

University of Idaho Nursery has what you want in Superstock size.

Dax

Here is a link that might be useful: Superstock Conifers

Right Dax, I've been eyeballing those. There's a place in Upper Michigan offering too. I've written to ask seed source. But like in the past, they are real slow to answer questions. However, based on their apparent enthusiasm for the tree, methinks it has got to be a zone-appropriate version.

+oM