Description
Picea – Spruce –
There are 30-45 species of monoecious, evergreen, coniferous trees in the Pinaceae family, in this genus. They are stiff, narrow, conical, sometimes columnar trees. They occur in forest in cool temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. They have horizontal to upward pointing branches covered in needle like leaves set singly around the shoots, and varies from bright green, glaucous, blue, silver and gray. The woody, oval to oblong-cylindrical female cones, held terminal on main shoots and side shoots, are erect at flowering, later pendent, they ripen in a season from green or red when young to purple or brown when mature. Ovoid, yellow to red purple male cones, 3/4-1 1/4″ long, are borne in spring on previous years shoots. Spruces are useful for shelter planting or as specimen trees, many cultivars are dwarf or slow growing. There are prostrate cultivars that make excellent ground covers.
Grow in any deep, moist but well drained, ideally neutral to acidic soil in full sun. It will not withstand polluted environments.
Prone to gall insects, aphids, caterpillars, sawfly, red spider mites, lesion nematode, scale insects, butt rot, heart rot, witches broom, mistletoe, rust, gall adelgids, and needle cast.
P. glauca – White Spruce – This slow growing narrowly or broadly conical tree from Canada and Northern USA grows 80-160′ feet tall and 10-12′ feet wide. It has ash gray bark, becoming scaly, and buff-white shoots. It produces four sided, blue green needle like aromatic leaves, ½-3/4″ long, are spreading at the sides of the shoots, overlapping above. It bears ovoid, green later light brown female cones that are 1 ½-2 ½” long.
Var. albertiana ‘Conica’ – ‘Albertiana Conica’ – Dwarf Alberta Spruce – grows 6-20′ feet tall and 3-8′ feet wide in a neat sone shaped with densely bright green leaves.
Zones 2-6
