Trees, Shrubs and Conifers: Corner by house, problem area, suggestions?, 1 by snapple45

snapple45 wrote:
This Eisregen was purchased at a local high end nursery. They warned me that the hardiness of this particular cultivar was much in question in zone 5a. I did some research and found a few references to it's origin (seed collected from the arid cold mountains of Pakistan) but little to it's use in the landscape in the US. It is widely planted in Tennessee and North Carolina, which is where I first saw it. Down there they are planted by commercial landscapers in shopping centers, usually up against the side of a building, or in groupings of three or four in front of office buildings. The group plantings are quite striking. All the plantings I saw were fairly recent ones. The needles bunch tightly together when it rains or if you spray the tree with water from a hose, probably owning to its native arid habitat. A soon as they dry out the clumped needles expand. From what I can gather they top out at 16' to 20'. Mine is about 16' and was 10' when planted four years ago. This year I noticed a double leader forming. Maybe its a signal that the tree will slow it's upward growth and produce more laterals. I have no idea. The photos do not really do this conifer justice. They don't capture the steely blue color of the needles. They are never green. This is a shot last from last summer.