Norway spruce - Picea abies

looks like you lost your blue jeans next to it...

anything else you want to know about it???

ken

Birch, spruces and pine will all grow much bigger than they are now - space shown is not big enough to accommodate all these trees.

My yard is quite small. The house behind me is very close to my house, hangs their laundry outside, and their entire backyard is basically a vegetable garden which looks ok during the summer, but horrible the rest of the year.

The original owner of my house had a dozen Leyland Cypress planted in a row in my backyard to form a privacy hedge about 15 years ago. The hurricane last year blew down about half of them, and I chopped the rest down because they had gotten way too big. They were slightly taller than my house.

I'm looking for some sort of evergreen tree to replace those trees to form a privacy hedge which is badly needed because I can't stand looking at my neighbor's backyard. My backyard receives partial sun, as my house creates a shadow over that area around noontime. The soil is fairly poor.

The most important thing is that the trees must be deer-resistant. The deer are destroying my neighbor's arborvitae, so those are out. Pine trees are too messy. So I think I'm left with just Spruce. One landscaper suggested Blue Spruce, but looking around my neighborhood, they seem to grow kind of scraggly. They definitely don't have dense foliage. Plus, I think a row of them might look kind of weird.

The picture I posted before was from the side of a neighbor's house which is on a corner. They planted about a dozen of those spruce (everyone agree that they are Norway spruce? - the owner doesn't know) about 5 years ago. My wife really likes the way this tree looks, so we're leaning towards getting these. No, those aren't blue jeans on the ground - those are weed barriers that got exposed.

I know Norway Spruce can get quite big. How is their growth rate compared to the Leyland Cypress that was originally there? I will probably be moving in 10-15 years, so as long as the trees aren't overgrown when I sell the house, I don't really care too much.

Are there smaller or slower-growing cultivars of Norway Spruce that are generally easy to find at nurseries?

Thanks for your help.

A landscaper just told me that he thinks it's a Douglas Fir.

Looks like Norway Spruce to me too. The buds look nothing like a Doug Fir (from here).

tj

I have a close-up pic that might help.

{{gwi:685266}}

I hate the identification game because I've been stung in the past, but I think that's probably douglas fir. The initial ID didn't seem right to me. A young P.a. wouldn't be that tight unless it were a special cultivar like 'Cupressina'* - which people here might forget the relative rarity of - or had been recently x-mas tree trimmed. I doubt that very much as it's labor intensive.
Does it look like these pictures:
http://www.aphotoflora.com/conifer_picea_abies_norway_spruce.html
No.
It's also the wrong shade of green and this bright medium green is much more like a Pseudotsuga than a Picea abies, which is a dark, sombre green.
signed,
a Sherlock Holmes wannabe

* so to answer your question, that's one of many slower growing spruce cultivars. And YES - you have good taste my friend. DO NOT plant a bunch of blue spruces. They look good in Colorado...I assume you're not in Colorado!

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.aphotoflora.com/conifer_picea_abies_norway_spruce.html

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Tue, Apr 23, 13 at 6:04

That being said, with summers getting warmer, generally, a Douglas fir in certain parts of NJ makes me a little nervous. If Blue Spruce look bad in your area, that may be next. You don't really see many in the DC suburbs, for example, because it's too muggy. If you're up in the solid zn 6a/5b parts of the NW part of the state - ok. If you're on really sandy pine barrens soil, that's well drained, no problem. If you're in Camden County on clay piedmont soil, watch out. Picea abies doesn't have this issue.
I know it's the conifer forum, but don't rule out hollies. As Ken likes to tell people around here, if you're going to plant a screen, make it of a mix of plant types & species, so that any one getting wiped out by an epidemic doesn't bring the whole thing down. And don't plant any leylands as you already found out. Furthermore, evaluate whether a screen really makes sense. Search gardenweb for "screening" for many past threads.

The needles are sharp/come to a point unlike Douglas fir. It's spruce. Picea abies looks fine for an id.

Dax

I don't mind being wrong but I don't know how you can tell that in such a low-resolution picture. Look at these pictures. Even someone who'd never given trees a moment's thought in their lives would say this looks more like the douglas fir.

BTW completely OT but there looks to be a thistle weed under that tree. I assume it isn't yours so you can't spray or remove it, but you want to get your neighbor to do something about it. That stuff will spread like crazy. It usually take a couple applications of roundup or a selective to completely kill them. I used to have a lot of it in my yard, including under a 50' PIcea abies (which look nothing like these photographs LOL) but I've almost completely eliminated it.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.barclaystreefarm.com/id4.html

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Tue, Apr 23, 13 at 8:38

I think I agree with David, its shape (branches growing very upright) and colour do not look to me like a regular P. abies.
If it is P. abies, then I presume some cultivar.

David, both Douglas fir and Colorado spruce eventually decline here in z6 west MD from needle blight. DF lasts a bit longer, but neither is a good choice here long-term.

Yeah I can believe that. Though there was a healthy looking one at Tripleoaks, on sandy soil in the NJ pine barrens, for some reason I seem to recall it was cut down. Not for disease though, but just to admit more light to the garden. And most of the great SE PA arboreta have them, such as Longwood:
https://plantexplorer.longwoodgardens.org/weboi/oecgi2.exe/INET_ECM_Di spPl?NAMENUM=16718&DETAIL=1&startpage=1
but it's rather small as their plants go, so maybe not very old. And they need to fix that "PA native" bit!

In any case, not a tree I'd plant in NJ unless I were way up in the NW on very well drained, cool soil.

Here is a link that might be useful: https://plantexplorer.longwoodgardens.org/weboi/oecgi2.exe/INET_ECM_Di spPl?NAMENUM=16718&DETAIL=1&startpage=1

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Tue, Apr 23, 13 at 10:17

I live in Bridgewater, NJ - which is along Route 78 if you're familiar with that. I think my soil might be classified as heavy clay with tons and tons of shale.

Below is a closer picture of the needles. And also a picture of the bark from the one tree that seems to be struggling a bit (all the rest look very healthy).

I had another landscaper come over today. His suggestion was to plant either Columnar Norway Spruce or Green Giant Arborvitae, which he claims are deer-resistant. I can see that a lot of websites also claim that Green Giant is deer-resistant, but is this really true? I know there are varying definitions of "deer-resistant".

Then I showed him a small branch of the neighbor's tree that I had clipped (that neighbor is actually like a 15-minute walk from my house). His opinion is that it's a fir because the needles are fairly flat. This landscaper seems way more knowledgeable than the other landscapers that I talked to. But he still seems to know a lot less than you guys.

If it's really hard to tell whether it's a Norway Spruce or a Douglas Fir, maybe I'll get them both and alternate them in the row. :) or is that silly?

Thanks for all your input so far.

{{gwi:685268}}

{{gwi:685270}}

The pictures you posted are a spruce, likely Norway spruce. Are these from the same tree as in the original picture?

With regard to Thuja x 'Green Giant', my personal experience is that it is not deer resistant. I fence in/cage all my trees due to a large number of deer in the area. If any of the fences blow down and aren't replaced within 24-48 hours, the tree will be eaten back to bare branches and trunk. I had a 4 foot Green Giant that this happened to - the deer had no qualms about eating it back completely!

Yes, the pictures all from the same tree. The original pictures were taken on a very sunny day. The last post were taken this morning and it is very cloudy.

This post was edited by dennisdennis on Tue, Apr 23, 13 at 11:25

That be Norway spruce my friend(s).

I've 33 Green Giants on a desolate area of my acreage and not a one has been touched by deer. They have however eaten and rubbed oaks/pines/dawn redwood/firs/orchard trees/bald cypress/spruce- so I don't think, I know what happens here may not be the case, elsewhere. I'd recommend you try Green Giant, first. They're inexpensive and full size Norway spruce are simply too large for city plots looking for privacy. Space Green Giant's 5' apart. Purchaing coloumnar/grafted Norway spruces will be expensive. And you don't need to purchase large GG's. 3 footers will be six footers in 2.5 years and in 5 years they'll be at least 9' tall.

Dax

Well, these pictures are obviously from a Norway Spruce. Why the first set looks like Douglas Fir, I don't know, but they do. You see can see in these pictures that they are not even the same shade of green! I could photograph my P. abies 20 times using different exposure and white balance settings and I wouldn't get it to look like that first picture, because it doesn't. It's just not the same shade of green. Maybe digicams vary in this regard.

Also I will still insist the first one looks trimmed up. My god, I was just at Spruceman's a couple weeks ago and he has hundreds of small to medium Picea abies. (well, it seems like it!) None of them looked like that. Maybe it was surplus from a Christmas tree farm that was sold for landscaping.

Anyhow didn't you say a landscape architect said it was Douglas Fir? If it fooled an "industry professional" who was looking at it in person, I'm not going to feel bad.

WAIT - now that I actually read your latest narrative, it sounds like you are talking about several trees. I give up at this point - if a local landscaper said something was something when talking about relatively common plants, he's probably more accurate than low-resolution pictures posted on the internet.

I know Bridgewater well, I used to work in the area for several weeks a year. Yes, the soil there is probably not ideal for Blue Spruce or Douglas Fir.

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Tue, Apr 23, 13 at 16:12

Privacy hedge made of picea abies is very popular in finland. It grows fast and stays thick and healty looking for tens of years and is impossible to see throw when cutted while dormancy every two years. It is best to plant seedlings about half a meter apart for enough space for every plant to grow.

I think I will take gardener365's suggestion and just go with Green Giant. If I had known there was a deer-resistant arborvitae, I would have just gone with that from the start. I did lose track of the fact that I need a skinny tree.

I do have another question though. I see some recently planted Leyland Cypress are getting eaten by deer. The ones that the deer aren't touching (like the ones that used to be in my backyard) were planted about 15 years ago when the development was being built. So I guess they had time to grow before the deer moved in, and the deer don't like the older growth (but they always like eating non-GG arborvitae?). So my question is... Should I bother putting up deer netting around the Green Giant for a couple years until they get bigger, or is that just a waste of time?

Was quite apparently Norway spruce from the start. Species is available in all manner of different growth habits, but grafted, named forms will cost a lot more than seed-raised stock. And with grafted conifers there is the problem of production nurseries using root-bound under-stocks, this seems to be pandemic.

Serbian spruce is more narrow-growing, if that is successful in your area.

LOL, I guess it was so apparent that that's the reason you didn't even answer the question in your first post. Sure looks like you were hedging your bets.

Clearly there is something fishy about this entire post. The OP seems to indicate that 1 or 2 local professionals thought it was a douglas fir. A NJ nurseryman or landscaper would have no trouble telling those apart. Then his second picture post is absolutely from a norway spruce and is not even the same shade as the first! AND the 2nd set of pictures doesn't even look like they came from the one in the first picture even though the OP says they are. Notice that beyond the bark, the tree is very sparse and we can easily make out the landscape beyond. There's no way a photograph taken through the first tree would have that appearance. You would just see a tangle of branches. The house's windows appear different, too. The detail picture of the first set looks way more like this: {{gwi:685264}} than the 2nd set detail picture, which again is obviously Norway Spruce. (this helps too: http://evergreenwinter.blogspot.com/2010/05/evergreen-care-spruces-introduction.html) Norway spruce needles are all the same length, and all angled/flexed in a very orderly way.

BTW, as for "douglas fir buds look nothing like that"; the tree has already broken bud. Once they do, new growth looks the same whether on PA or PM; I don't see how that can be a determining factor. http://wildfoodsandmedicines.com/fir-hemlock-and-spruce-tips/
All this being said, it's recently planted and I don't think many run of the mill nurseries would be selling douglas firs in that area. So it probably is a Picea abies, just an atypical looking one. Maybe they are selling bright green strains to keep them from looking too funereal. With a properly adjusted/white balanced digicam, there's no way the first set of pictures and the 2nd detail picture are the same tree. And maybe they are starting to trim them up before selling them in nurseries, to keep them from being gawky looking. All of the small ones I've seen look like this:

http://plants.chaletnursery.com/12120004/Plant/5258/Hillside_Upright_S pruce

And the final BTW...the mere FACT Resin didn't comment on this is highly suspect! Though he will probably say it is Picea abies LOL.

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Sun, Apr 28, 13 at 15:21

OK, final post. Sheesh. I was just looking at these pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/68251859@N03/6261200034/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hickoryhollow/6836956879/
(not every douglas fir on the east coast is the blue-green interior form.)

Apparently, Northeastern wholesalers are having to ridiculously trim their large conifers to make them conform to everyone's expectation of a perfectly triangular blob. I shouldn't have based anything on the overall shape in that case, though I'm still convinced a naturally grown, random seed strain 6' douglas fir would be somewhat more compact than a P. a. I saw them in forestry plantations out on in the PNW; they look like little christmas trees w/o any pruning. Young Picea abies look like Charlie Brown Christmas trees w/o any pruning.

Frist detail picture (i.e., 2nd overall) still looks very wrong for Picea abies as any # of google images searches will reveal. Whether one could still be so atypical and still be PIcea abies, well, I've never seen it myself but anything is possible. I will "closely examine" my 2 50' Picea abies in a couple weeks to see if there is anyway they could look like that. I don't tend to notice them when I'm close to them to be honest. Usually too busy spraying dandelions or lonicera with selective herbicide! When I moved here they were completely overrun with lonicera, all the way to the top.

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Sun, Apr 28, 13 at 15:38

David, when my dad & I planted 7 or 8 N spruces in the early 70s, I was surprised how different they were. Some had open, loose forms, while others had tight, more upright forms like the first pic here. After decades, they have retained those forms (even at 60'+), the looser ones looking more relaxed & graceful than the "tight" ones.

I agree beng. This form could be called Picea abies f. pseudopseudotsuga. (this one could be Picea abies f. pseudocephalopoda)

Kidding aside, now that I know about the prevalence of pruning in the nursery trade, I would probably have been ok w/P. a. for the first picture. Because that explains why it doesn't look like the more open, gawky form you'd expect of 99% of seedlings. (If this form looks that way on its own, someone better get scion wood of it. They could name it Picea abies 'Christmas Tree'.) The second picture doesn't look like P. abies foliage to me at all, under any circumstances. However as I said I will soon bring my camera down to my norway spruces and if I can produce a photograph that looks like that, I will admit they can be really deceptive in how they look.

Beng, have you seen Spruceman's spruce collection? Or vice versus, has he seen these trees you speak of? I have to ask since you are both spruce enthusiasts in the same general area! I like the mature trees in my yard but they probably aren't something I'm passionate enough about to collect. (Conifers in general aren't even really my favorite plants, but I like them enough and this is the best forum on gardenweb. I mainly see them as useful/appropriate windbreaks and overstory protection for broadleaved evergreens. Sorry guys!) I visited Spruceman's collection a month or so ago and was going to do a trip report but never got around to it. It's pretty awesome so you guys should get together at some point if you haven't already.