Oriental spruce
* Common name: Oriental spruce
* Botanical name: Picea orientalis
* What it is: A tall, upright, graceful evergreen tree with short and fairly soft needles of medium green. Habit is gently arching. The small flowers are red, which makes this evergreen unusually colorful for a few weeks in spring.
* Size: 50 to 60 feet tall, 20 to 25 feet wide.
* Where to use: Nice enough as a specimen evergreen for a property corner but also useful in groups as a sunny screen planting (if you have 20 feet or so of border space to work with). Best in full sun.
* Care: Improve soil with compost before planting and keep soil consistently damp (never soggy) for first full year. An annual spring scattering of Holly-tone or similar acidifying organic fertilizer is helpful. Pruning not needed if you give it proper space.
* Great partner: Ring with bright gold or red perennials, such as black-eyed susans, gaillardia, coreopsis, mums and/or daylilies.
Hello George
We planted a beautiful oriental spruce this spring - 8 foot. We have not seen any new growth. One lower branch has died. Perhaps we need to dig around it and amend the soil which seems compacted and moist, like clay.
Advice?
Henry,
That’s not a good sign that you haven’t seen any new growth yet. Also not good that you’re seeing dieback. If the soil is soggy and clayish, that should have been corrected (or another site selected) at planting since spruce don’t do well with “wet feet” and heavily compacted soil.
It’s possible you may be able to save the plant by digging it back up and planting in better drainage and looser soil — whether you move it to a better site or improve and raise the current bed and replant.
If you dig up the plant and inspect the rootball to find rotting roots and/or a sewer-like smell, you’ll confirm it was compaction and poor drainage behind the trouble.
I can’t say for sure if that’s what’s going on here without seeing the situation first-hand, but your observations fit the scenario.