Blue Spruce in Florida?

Well it's been 2 weeks and the blue spruce is doing fine so far in Florida's hot and humid summer weather. I acclimated the spruce for the first week on my front porch which is on the North side and gets no direct sunlight. I have since moved the spruce to the East side of the house which gets morning sun and I plan on keeping it there until late Autumn when the temperatures finally cool down and then I plan on moving it to my deck which has a Southern exposure. Even though Kigi Nurseries lists it for full sun and up to zone 9, I am still concerned about overheating the roots, especially since it is in a planter. I am also concerned about proper drainage of the planter since only one small hole is pre-drilled so I plan on drilling more.

Any suggestions?

Original post: I just received my Picea pungens ' The Blues ' Weeping Colorado Spruce 1gal. I never ordered plants mailorder before and was uncertain of what to expect. The box came and before I opened it I imagined the worst - a small dead looking tree, but to my great surprise it was a very healthy looking plant with no dead or brown spots whatsoever and the size was just as described. Beautiful!

Wow, thats a nice plant, good luck. It would look really nice in the landscaping.
I'm wondering if prolly the Colorado Blue Spruce needs a cold period over the Winter.
Washington state is very far away from Fla. Thats where Kigi Nursery is,
I don't think the provenance would be good.
I think Kigi might be fudging some on the cold hardiness, I have read a few things that say max 6 and zone 7. Nursery info. and legit. Univ., Univ. ext. or even well regarded plant sites can be different sometimes. I've noticed some nurseries will fudge some, even on zone hardiness maps to make more sales is my opinion.
http://www.treehelp.com/trees/spruce/spruce-types-colorado.asp - zone 6 max
The Univ. of Fla. - http://hort.ifas.ufl.edu/trees/PICPUNA.pdf - zone 7 max
It might be a good pre-Christmas present for a cold-weather relative of yours. : )
If your like me though, I'll hold onto something thru any questionable period and if it dies then I know I can't have that! lol My relatives might kill stuff like that just from not watering it! lol Good luck, beautiful plant.
Will

Yeah I saw the same thing - different zones from different sources for the same plant - and was thinking the same thing. Well I'm going to baby it so hopefully it makes it, but if we have a winter like we did last year then it should feel right at home. It was the coldest winter in decades and some areas nearby even had snow flurries.

Good idea. It did get cold there for Florida I heard, hope it happens some more for you.
I heard people there were all atwitter about their coconut trees and whatnot..lol
You'll have to let us know how it went over the Florida Winter.
We get a White Christmas here about one in 5 years even. About January we're bumming pretty good on the 0° temperatures for days straight.

I double pot my trees during the heat of the summer. But the lowest zone I'll go is an 8. I'd love to know how it goes. Keep us updated.
And you know the soil can't hold water, I've killed a couple of conifers with too much water. Fast draining soil, I rather water more often than have it sit in wet soil.
I watered my red tulips with ice cubes and they loved it, but never tried it with my trees.

I used ultimate potting mix from a garden center, but I might re-pot once it gets cooler out and mix stuff into it - like pine bark fines (that I've read about online) - to make it faster draining. I thought about using ice cubes too, but my friends thought I was crazy. I might look into a misting system instead. Double potting also sounds like a good idea to insulate the plants from the intense heat. I haven't tried that yet.

A couple of days ago on August 30th I re-planted the blue spruce into the same 20 x 20 container, but I used a 3 part mix of 1 part potting soil (sphagnum peat moss, perlite, starter charge, dolomitic limestone, calcitic limestone, wetting agent), 1 part lava rock and 1 part pine bark fines to make the soil fast draining. In August we had 9.14 inches of rain which was above average and the potting soil in the container stayed very moist which caused the tips of the blue spruce to turn yellow from too much water since they don't like wet feet. Thankfully the last few days it has been hot, windy, and mostly dry and the forecast calls for more dry weather. It has only been in it's new soil for a couple of days, but it already looks better and hopefully it thrives. I still have it on the east side of the house so it only gets morning sun, but once it gets cooler I will move it to the south side of the house so it can get full sun.

OOOooo that is sooo pretty.


I understand the necessity here in Florida, but keep in mind that conifers withstand only one insult per year. Yours looks so healthy you shouldn't have a problem. The insult referrs to bonsai with repotting and clipping roots one year and clipping branches the next year.
Also, they like moisture on the top part. I have a spray bottle I squirt them often with when it gets hot and dry.

This message was edited Sep 2, 2010 12:56 AM

I noticed when I re-planted the spruce that the roots which were a whitish light green color had grown from a month earlier when I originally planted it, but I noticed something that I thought was strange - that lots of the roots seemed to be growing up towards the soil surface, instead of down into the container as I would have expected. I thought maybe this was due to the soil being soggy? Hopefully the new soil mix provides an improvement as I think it will. Thanks for the information.

Zone 6 here in Tennessee - I was really hoping to get a spruce started here this coming spring, and worry about the heat and humidity here. How is yours now? Was there some particular reason you picked a blue instead of a white?

The blue spruce is doing fine so far. I had it in full sun over the winter because we had cool temps. Now that it is warmer, I moved it yesterday so that it only gets morning sun because I don't want it to cook. I did the same thing last summer when I first got it. I found out that something labeled 'full sun' means morning sun in Florida, unless it's tropical.

The reason that I chose this particular spruce was that I liked the color and the weeping effect. I was also looking for one that was labeled for zone 9a where I live and Kigi Nursery markets it that way.

Good luck if you decide to try growing one.

Thank you for the info! I believe I will try a spruce for the unique look they have. I have more shade than sun but believe I have a place that will work for it. I'll keep you posted.