I have a small Karl Fuchs. It's too small yet to determine if it's tall & narrow or tall & broad. It weathered last winter very well however 2nd year & older needles browned and fell of in spring. 1st year needles had no damage. It grew very well over the summer. Mine is blue like a blue spruce.

I know of an Eisregen that is ~15' tall and it looks like it's going to have typical C. deodara form. I don't know how it did last winter but it's in a 1/2 warmer zone then mine. It was lightly blue when I saw it in early May (new growth hadn't started yet).

I have heard Shalimar is NOT as hardy as Karl Fuchs Patkia selections (Karl Fuchs, Eiswinter, Polar Winter, & Eisregen).

hi

are you new-ish to conifers???

finding names is only part of the game of collecting ...

actually finding the plants ... ready for sale is a whole other ball of wax ...

also ... we have many international friends here ... and it seems at least half of the names.. are on the other side of the pond.. and may never be available here ...or ... small pieces have made it here... but it will be years.. before they are salable ...

when it all boils down ... only those you can actually get your hands on ... are the ones that should be in your equation .... and the others.. go on your wish list .. and my wish list after 15 years of collecting... is ginormous ... heck i cant even remember why i wanted half of them ... and most have never become available ...

what is available.. at one of our favored sellers.. is at the link ...

good luck on your hunt.. as i said.. its half the fun ...

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

Agree with Smivies that you should skip Shalimar in zone 6a.

Worth remembering it was _not_ specifically collected for hardiness, although the person collecting it might have thought that was a reason to send it to Harvard. It was found in a famous garden that, although in a cold town by Indian standards (probably 9a) is not nearly the same as the Kashmir mountain areas where the german-sounding cultivars were sought and located.

Rarefind nursery has Polar Winter which it describes as "like type", so I assume more or less looks just like a standard deodar. They also have Karl Fuchs which is almost always described as narrow and bluish.

Might try to order one or two of each of those.

Is anyone dealt with this nursery?

Here is a link that might be useful: Cedars at Rarefind Nursery

Normal growing Himalayan cedars become enormous in time, if you aren't landscaping a park you might want to just go with the scarecrow habit cultivar.

Not that it is going to produce a dwarf tree either.

My own observations from my family{{gwi:807}} in Ohio, plus countless reports on GW and elsewhere on these cultivars and their hardiness:

Karl Fuchs 5b
Eisregen 5b
Shalimar 6b in reality, but it has supposedly survived -24F (At Arnold Arboretum I think?)
Kashmir probably only really 6b in a protected spot - Dirr says it's only slightly hardier than the species as a whole.

Polar Winter and Eiswinter are from the same seed provenance as Karl Fuchs and Eisregen, and probably similar in hardiness, but these two are hard to find, so I don't have much to go off of.

This post was edited by hairmetal4ever on Sat, Dec 27, 14 at 9:06

"Is anyone dealt with this nursery?"

I can assure you they are completely honest in their dealings.