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Colorado Blue Spruce

Picea pungens


Hardiness Zones: 2 - 7   View Map
  • Displays its unique silvery blue-green color year-round
  • Withstands wind better than most spruces due to a wide-spreading and moderately deep root system
  • Is a long-lived specimen
  • Features needles that are stiff, prickly, and roughly 1–1½" in length
  • Provides privacy and a windbreak when planted in a row
  • Yields light brown, 3–4" cones which hang downward on the branches and are concentrated in the upper crown
  • Grows in a columnar, pyramidal shape

Tree Details

Shape

Columnar

Growth Speed

Slow to Medium

Scientific Name

Picea pungens

Mature Height

50' - 75'

Mature Spread

10' - 20'

Shipping Group

Nursery

Shipping Height

1' - 2'

Highlights

One of our most popular ornamental conifers, the Colorado blue spruce (or simply, blue spruce) is a truly magnificent sight. Perhaps Donald Culrose Peattie described it best in A Natural History of Western Trees. "This insistently pretty tree displays its charms of tier on tier of branches graduated in perfect symmetry from the longest boughs that sweep the ground to the slender but strong top."

Its silvery blue-green coloring and perfect Christmas tree shape make this tree a great landscaping focal point on commercial and residential properties. It is also widely used for privacy or a windbreak.

Sun Preference

Full Sun

Soil Preference

Acidic, Clay, Drought, Loamy, Moist, Rich, Sandy, Well Drained, Wet

Wildlife Value

This spruce provides food and shelter for siskins, nuthatches and crossbills.

History/Lore

The Colorado blue spruce is such a delight that nature seems to have kept it a well-guarded secret for a very long time. It was not until 1862 that this spectacular species was discovered growing in enchanted meadows and stream sides high up in the Rocky Mountains. Once found, the fame of this blue spruce spread quickly, and today it is one of our most widely planted landscape trees as well as the state tree of Colorado. When writing Handbook on Conifers in 1969, Henry Tuescher, curator emeritus of the Montreal Botanical Garden, called the Colorado blue spruce one of the five finest conifers. Tuescher gave no reasons for this honor except for the tree's exceptional beauty.

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