Blue Spruce

Note: For check out, you’ll be asked to select a Pick Up and Return date.  Please select today’s date at the Pick Up date, and Friday, October 17th as the Return Date. Plants will be available for pick up on October 17th.  We will email you to confirm pick up date.  Please call Neva at 970-508-0674 for any questions. 

The blue spruce (Picea pungens), also commonly known as Colorado spruce or Colorado blue spruce, is a species of spruce tree native to North America in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. It is noted for its blue-green colored needles, and has therefore been used as an ornamental tree in many places far beyond its native range.

In the wild, Picea pungens grows to as much as 50 meters (164 ft) in height, but more typically 30 m (98 ft) tall.[7] When planted in parks and gardens it most often grows 9 to 18 m (30 to 60 ft) tall with a spread of 3 to 6 m (10 to 20 ft). It has scaly grey-brown bark with a slight amount of a cinnamon-red undertone on its trunk, not as rough as an Engelmann spruce.[7] On older trees the trunk bark will be deeply furrowed and scaly. The diameter of the trunk may reach as much as 1.5 m (4.9 ft).

Blue spruce is a conifer with a conical crown when young, but more open and irregular in shape as it becomes older. The stout branches grow out horizontally in well defined whorls, but lower branches droop downwards as trees age. Young twigs never hang downwards and are yellow-brown in color.

Blue spruce is generally considered to grow best with abundant moisture. Nevertheless, this species can withstand drought better than any other spruce. It can withstand extremely low temperatures (-40 degrees C) as well. Furthermore, this species is more resistant to high insolation and frost damage compared to other associated species.