I've found it challenging to grow miniatures of A. lasiocarpa here in central NJ (although I'm still trying! My second try at 'Lopalpun' just croaked last month - time to cross that one off the list). I've had better luck with dwarf cultivars such as 'Green Globe', 'Prickly Pete', etc...

With Abies cultivars, the species of understock onto which it's grafted is important. Abies firma is a good understock for warm soil as in the south and Abies nordmanianna is a good understock for planting in clay soils. Abies balsamea is one of the most common understocks used, but is not good for hot climates since roots cannot withstand persistent high temperatures and hot sun. The point is that in your case it may be worth asking nurseries which understock is used for particular plants, since it may have a large impact on your chance of success.

Alex

Funny you should ask.
I ordered a bunch of Abies from Treehaven.
Sadly, not that he isn't a nice guy, the plants I mainly wanted for understocks were not a useful size, either too small or too big. But I'm glad I got the order anyhow because this very wet summer was highly evaluative of the ones I was hoping to keep alive for scion sources.

I would guess if you garden on a rocky mountain face above 1000' - maybe even the top of "Sugarloaf Mountain" - you could probably grow ungrafted A. lasiocarpa in the mid-Atlantic. Otherwise, no. The 3 I had were absolutely punished by 10+" of rain in June, then a few incredibly steamy weeks in July. I think as with the other mesic/non-monsoon alpine firs it would only be a matter of time before they are finished off. There was one planted on top of a 3' mound of rock and clay that looked ok until about 2 weeks ago. Then...BAM...thing literally went brown and crispy in just a couple days.

OTOH, interestingly some small A. delavayi have been fine. I do plan to try to graft them though, onto the A. nordmanianna or A. firmas I have. Long term I think that would be for the best. Those 2 (A. delavayi & A. lasiocarpa) were nicely fragrant. The best fragrance probably comes from A. grandis though...like incense & tangerines...incredible. They were too big to be bare-rooted IMHO and all 3 had massive transplant shock. Then the humid & cloudy May and June finished two off, but one regenerated and looks OK.
So I'll be grafting A. grandis, A. delavayi and a nice form of A. koreana that I spotted in Forest Glen, MD, onto A. nordmanniana and A. firmas...and I'll consider my fir-related life mission complete har har har. Spruceman's A. delavayi doesn't look too happy out there, I think my milder winters and wetter summers would suit it but the roots are going to need protection from my tendency towards massive rainfall events in July-October that are like Club Med for Phytophthora.
A. pindrow has been a trouper here, even in a situation prune to quasi-flooding. it's in the same series as A. firma but has fragrant needles and is the most subtropical looking fir IMHO.

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Tue, Aug 27, 13 at 18:53

Where are you located, David?

We had a wet June and early July, but it has been dry enough lately that the grass has recently browned. I am in Howard County.

I'm about 1 mile from the upper Chesapeake Bay.

I'm in the humid east but with more frequent breaks from high humidity than you would experience in Maryland.
A. concolor does very well here...probably the best of the commonly planted firs. Greek Fir does even better but it's impossible to find. A. lasiocarpa does ok. It needs a bit of coddling.

This post was edited by smivies on Wed, Aug 28, 13 at 16:33

It seems to get more confusing the more I read.

It seems anecdotally that A. concolor does âÂÂOKâ here if sited properly. Lots of nurseries sell A. koreana as well, how does that perform?

What about Abies koreana x lasiocarpa?

I guess rootstock is important too. So many things to know!

We have moderate rainfall here, and silty-clay-loam soil, pH about 6.0 with average fertility and surprisingly well-drained for the most part. WeâÂÂre not as wet as davidrt28 but not as dry as, say the Shenandoah Valley in its minor rain shadow between the mountains.

I have an old A. concolor in my yard, about 35'-40' high. Very unusual to see in this part of the state. It's very ratty and open looking...I can imagine it only has a few years left. But it is alive. All things considered it still looks better than most of the Colorado Blue Spruces around here...because at least its dead needles and branches fall off.
A. lasiocarpa is from higher, cooler more alpine terrain than A. concolor.
Yes A. koreana is from alpine areas too, but the big difference is from NW India all the way over to Japan, you are talking about areas that have a summer monsoon. Hence their better tolerance of our more humid conditions...like the A. delavayi seedlings surviving for me when the 3 A. lasiocarpa seedlings died.

How about A. pinsapo? Being from Spain, is it more heat-tolerant?

Generally speaking the answer is yes, Abies pinsapo is better suited for warmer climates. But the rootstock factors outlined above will still come into play. If a pinsapo cultivar is grafted onto a heat-intolerant rootstock (and frequently it will be, esp. if you're ordering from a West coast nursery) then when the soil gets hot in late summer, the plant will struggle and likely perish. You should look for grafts on Abies firma understock, which will be better suited to your climate. Last I heard, Broken Arrow Nursery had some pinsapo cultivars on Abies firma roots.

You haven't mentioned if you're asking about cultivars or species trees. For a seed-grown species tree, this analysis would obviously not be relevant.

Alex

Hair, just bought 2 more firs this spring from Forestfarm attempting to get a good specimen (in addition to concolor):

Abies holophylla -- Manchurian fir
Abies nordmanniana -- Nordmann fir

Both seem slow to establish, but at least have formed buds for next yr. They'll be deer-targets in the winter, so will have to be protected then.

Yes, e Asia is the place to look, as it is more similar than w North America, the Mediterranean region and so on. China has a high number of Abies species, although they aren't all on the market or northern hardy, of course.

Another indicator of superior suitability is which species have high numbers of cultivars in western cultivation, especially more recently selected ones. In the case of Abies Korean fir stands out.

It seems somewhat odd to me that our native Eastern firs, A. balsamea and A. fraseri do NOT generally do that well here.

Although some Christmas Tree growers do manage A. fraseri here. Although both are native to places with much cooler summers (Balsam in the far north, Fraser in higher elevations).

The native mountain conifers don't do as well in the lowlands as in the mountains out here also, and we have cool summers. Even mountain hemlock, which otherwise often looks great in local plantings will often turn out to be full of bugs when looked at more closely.

In addition to being disease susceptible Fraser fir can't handle smog. It is typical for Abies in general to want good soils and fresh (clean), moist atmospheres; often they are part of a montane climate zone vegetation that sits above the one(s) occupying the lowlands.

There is (or was) a large, mature A. lasiocarpa at the MN Landscape Arboretum in the Twin Cities - also a nice A. lasiocarpa var. arizonica on the St. Paul Campus of the U of M.

I've come across several apparently happy specimens of Abies pinsapo 'Glauca' locally. Here's one in central NJ, it's the plant in the back, just to the right of center. Too bad I don't have a better close-up, this plant is thriving and I'd estimate 15-20 years old.

Here's another respectable specimen, though starting to become a little ragged. This one's at Wave Hill in NYC.

"It seems somewhat odd to me that our native Eastern firs, A. balsamea and A. fraseri do NOT generally do that well here. "

Have you actually been up to those mountains around or above 3600'? They are very cool; and unlike the PNW, always moist in summer. There's a golf course in western NC that has a guarantee you will never see a temp above 80F, at around 5000' IIRC.

Parts of Spain & the rest of the Med. can be muggier than California; I definitely would not have survived my visit to Barcelona without air-conditioning OTOH I bet you could get by without it as far south as Santa Barbara. (much cooler waters = lower dewpoints even if it's hot) Thus A. pinsapo does well in the upper south/mid-Atlantic. Still wouldn't plant one in New Orleans!

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Thu, Sep 12, 13 at 20:41

I wouldn't call any of the firs in those last two pictures "happy", issues are clearly visible.

Both the A. pinsapos on firma from BA bit the dust- two weeks apart, it must have been the heat so close together. So I would say just too much humidity combined with heat is not good. Barcelona looks very comfortable to me, average high 82f.

"Barcelona looks very comfortable to me, average high 82f."

Yes, but it's muggy. No, not Louisiana muggy, but maybe Long Island muggy. Besides A. pinsapo is native to some degree of elevation IIRC.
But my point stands, they are not super-sensitive to high dewpoints. There's one at NCSU; OTOH there certainly isn't an A. lasiocarpa there or even an A. grandis.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.ncsu.edu/jcraulstonarboretum/horticulture/current_plantings/current_plantings_details.php?serialnumber=0017604

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Thu, Sep 12, 13 at 20:40

So, David, in my silty clay loam, moderate rainfall climate where the soil is usually muck-wet from December until March, good moisture balance in spring and early summer, and can often be, but is not always, on the dry/hot side in mid to late summer...is the A. firma the best rootstock? I see it takes warm soils but what about heavyish wet soils (which is what we typically have in the winter months)?

I'm probably not quite as wet as your climate, but not as dry as Spruceman. But in winter, my soils are typically pretty wet.

A. pindrow is GORGEOUS from the pics...but appears quite tender (z8) plus has issues with late spring frosts.

Might be OK closer to the bay or coast, but here somewhat inland (I had a 32F light freeze in May this spring) I'd be nervous about it.

The A. firma at my old house had standing water many times in heavy loamy silty clay. I never could get a bottle brushbuckeye to survive, they always died after a flooding event. The firma was amazing. It was the wettest in the winter and spring but of course no frozen soil here, that may make a difference.
I will order another or more this winter, it is not your typical fir tree but I rather like the reptilian look anyway, sort of like a cunninghamia.

The soil being wet in winter usually isn't the problem hairmetal. At least usually not with plants bigger than forbs or geophytes; and of course discounting some nervous nellies like Daphne odora which can die at any time of year if someone so much as sneezes on one. (ok...a bit of hyperbole) Wet...but not saturated. Of course, only an aquatic conifer like Taxodium is going to grow in a swamp that is constantly wet. The problem with most plants from mountain climates is hot wet soil in summer. For example in the PNW I saw rhododendrons planted in low spots...not quite the bottom of a swale but close...where they would surely die if planted in a similar situation on the east coast. In the PNW they don't have to worry about 4" of rain from one July storm and soil temps. going well above 80F.

A. pindrow is definitely zn 7 hardy, there's one at the Arnold Arboretum though I don't know how old it is. (http://arboretum.harvard.edu/explorer/) There was one at least 12' tall at the old Dilworth Nursery in Oxford, PA. Though Oxford isn't very far from me as the crow flies, it's MUCH colder, having freezes much earlier in the fall and having been below 0F at least a few times in the past decade. It makes me sick to my stomach to think that plant was probably destroyed when the nursery was sold. (Google already has recent satellite images: you can see the pockmarked fields here: http://goo.gl/maps/abdXO) They had a 2-3 acre field of stock plants, when I drove by there a few months ago it was a plowed field. Heart breaking. I hope they found someone to broker the sale of those but I guess it's so expensive to move them at that size, maybe not.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://arboretum.harvard.edu/explorer/

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Fri, Sep 13, 13 at 2:23

Ik this is old, but generally, Abies koreana generally does well here since it is from east Asia, funny how Abies balsamea and Abies fraseri don’t do well there, they commonly grown as Christmas trees in my area and get big and green.