The closest you can get to a cold, bright greenhouse the better it will do - ordinary indoor living room conditions definitely not suitable.

i only have a minute ...

i will yell ...

ITS NOT A HOUSEPLANT ...

THAT BORDERS ON TRYING TO KILL IT WITH TOO MUCH LOVE .. oops ... lol ...

it was already hardened off for winter ... get it back outside ... presuming you got it from a cold greenhouse ...

more tomorrow ...

picea glauca if fully hardy.. up here near ann arbor ... i have no clue why bboy thinks it needs a greenhouse ...

use the latin name for better searching ...

track down dannaher landscape in westerville for a brilliant conifer grower ... close enough???

it would be best to plant it in spring... and dig it up in a year or two.. rather than trying to kill it in a pot ...

gotta go

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

are you absolutely sure on this ID ...

there are a couple holiday type conifers.. which are sold as basically throw away ... .. plants after the holidays ...usually sold in 4 inch pots ... [google of the latin.. tells me this is one of them]

if it was outdoors when you got it ... it is probably dormant ... and could probably be planted in mother earth ... subject to the horrible OH clay down in columbus ...

i would NEVER try to winter over a conifer/tree.,... in a 4 inch pot ... i would.. at a min ... repot it.. with NO root disturbance.. to a one gal... with proper media ... i might even just sink pot and all in the larger pot ... its all about maintaining the roots dormant... on days temps spike.. as tiny pots.. warm fast ...

trees ... of which conifers are ... like a sip of water ... and then near total drainage .... even in august.. in MI ... i might water mine once a month or so .... but then.. i dont have then in 4 inch pots ...

let it near dry .... in between waterings ...

and do fully understand ... a dormant tree does not need all that much water ....

its also problematic.. that we dont know the media already in the pot ... media for production.. in a small pot.. can be wildly divergent from what you might need ... it might hold too much water on purpose.. and that purpose is NOT yours ...

you are dreaming that your sunporch might only be a few degrees warmer ... i smoke in my attached garage ... and it can be 15 to 30 degrees warmer than outside.. on sunny days... in mid winter ..... and that wont be good ...

you are spot on on the wind issue .... reducing that is good ...

ken

ps: dannaher... i meant to enable you ... i did not expect you to go asking them.. how to take care of a plant you bought elsewhere ... maybe the website will have info ....

Here is a link that might be useful: galena.. westerville.. whatever ...

Thanks ken, I absolutely want to at least get it out of the 4" pot... If I were to repot it are there any specific types of pots that encourage the types of soil moisture/drainage you recommend? (Other than it being at least gallon sized). Any suggestions on the proper soil to go in the larger pot?

It was kept outside at the nursery, do you think I messed it up having it indoors for less than a day?

Put it in a plastic 6 inch pot with drainage holes and bury the whole pot in the ground. Then if you move you can lift it out easily. But if you decide you want to stay in the house be sure to pull it out of the ground and actually plant it.

Good Luck.

Better yet, put it in a 3 gallon pot and bury that in the ground. That way if it stays in the ground for over a year that it has room in the pot for root growth.
That way when you lift it out you wont lose so many roots.

Drainage layers in small containers make drainage worse - the water hits the layer of differently textured material and backs up, until the potting soil above the drainage layer is quite wet, then rushes through the drainage layer.

Creating the false impression that drainage has been made quite good.

Fill the pot with potting soil from top to bottom.

Do you recommend mixing some sand into that one layer of soil? (Seems like that site I linked and a few other botanical sites seem to recommend that?)

If you are going to put in into a pot and then put the pot into the ground, they just put dirt from your yard into the pot.
You dont need to get fancy. Drainage materials are for things that are not in the ground.
I doubt the plant will die from being too wet outside.

Buy a small bag of general or otherwise not specialized (as in orchid mix or cactus mix etc.) potting soil at a garden center and plant it in that. If you are going to plunge the pot outside put it in an adequately deep pile of bark mulch, sand, or other loose material rather than into the ground.