Blue spruce trees add delightful pops of color to the garden. They’re evergreen conifers native to North America that love growing in our front and backyards. Join native plant gardener Jerad Bryant in learning to cultivate and care for blue spruce trees.
Native conifers are essential additions to the garden. They provide year-round ornamental interest with needles, cones, and scaly gray bark. The branches provide habitat space for birds, squirrels, and small mammals. The cones feed hungry birds and squirrels, while the flowers offer valuable resin for nest-building bees.
Not only are blue spruces valuable for wildlife, but they’re also easy trees to care for. They perform well in their native range without additional care. They’ll need some maintenance if you grow them outside their preferred habitat, although they’ll grow more drought-tolerant and frost-hardy as they mature.
Blue spruce, or Colorado spruce, is perfect for native plant gardens, living fences, or specimen plantings. It’ll slowly extend over 50 feet tall with a wide base, filling bare sites with lovely evergreen foliage. Rather than traditional conifer green, go for the bright gray-blue of the blue spruce tree!
Blue spruce is an evergreen conifer, meaning it keeps its bright blue needles on its stems throughout the year. It starts as a young sapling and slowly matures into a large, towering tree.
Blue spruces originate in mountainous regions from Montana to Mexico. They grow water-preserving needles at high altitudes to conserve moisture when it’s scarce. You’ll find them growing wild in Wyoming, Colorado, and Montana. They’re the official state tree of Colorado!
Although blue spruce is a western conifer, it thrives in cool sites from USDA hardiness zones 2 through 7. I see these evergreen trees growing in yards throughout my region of the Pacific Northwest in zone 8. So long as you provide consistent moisture and avoid excessive summer heat, you can cultivate blue spruce in your garden.
Spruces, or trees in the genus Picea, share some of the same traits. These conifers grow spiny, evergreen needles that attach to the stems on pegs known as sterigmata. The pegs persist on the stems long after the needles fall off, and you can use them to help you identify this tree from firs or pines.
Blue spruces have characteristic blue-green needles. They emerge bright blue at first and fade to a dull green. In the nursery trade, species used for propagating and selling are bright blue specimens under the name Picea pungens var. glauca. These retain their blue color better than most wild trees do.
Spruces sprout decorative cones that mature throughout the year. Blue spruces sprout bright red-purple cones that mature to a light brown. The cones hang onto the tree while they release seeds below when conditions are favorable for germination. Some large cones reach up to ten inches long!
Because spruces are wild trees, they grow to epic proportions in their native range. You can expect blue spruce to reach between 30 and 60 feet tall when it’s mature. It’ll hold onto the lower branches, creating a pyramidal structure reminiscent of Christmas tree shapes.
You’ll find these trees available as potted saplings in nurseries throughout North America. Although sold in eastern states, they perform best in regions near their native range, or cold climates from zones 2 through 7. Consider choosing a different spruce that’s local to your area if you garden in warm regions of the Southeast.