Different Types of Spruce Trees To Adorn Your Landscapes

 

Spruce trees are known for their magnificent appearance. There are different types of spruce trees that will make an outstanding specimen in your landscape. 

Spruce trees have a total of 35 different species. It is regarded as a part of the Pinaceae family along with firs, pines, hemlocks, cedars, larches, and few others. A spruce tree can be very easily identified by examining the needles. The needles are attached to the branches by swollen joints structure, which allows complete movement and flexibility. 

Spruce trees are super versatile with multiple uses. The conical, narrow growth pattern of the spruce trees makes them a perfect choice for any landscape. The spruce trees’ shapes make them an obvious pick as Christmas trees; their superior wood quality makes them a favorite choice for construction lumber. 

Below we have mentioned popular types of the spruce tree that will add color to your property year-round.

Types of Spruce Trees:

We have listed 12 types of spruce trees and shrubs that are popular for their eye-catching looks.

Bird’s Nest Spruce

This spruce tree is a unique type of Norway spruce that looks like a round-shaped dwarf shrub featuring an indentation top that resembles a bird’s nest. These types of spruce trees work well for small evergreen patios. Bird’s nest spruce grows a little slow in the initial years and achieves a height of only 1-2 feet in the first ten years. The tree is native to central and Northern Europe.

Black Spruce 

The black spruce tree is native to the Northern side of North America. It thrives well in wet areas and is mostly found in taiga or boreal forest regions. The black spruce tree is a major host to the parasitic eastern dwarf mistletoe. This falls under the category of large types of spruce trees. It grows 1-2 feet high to form a hassock shaped mound. It can reach upto a height of 30-50 feet.

Brewer Spruce 

The name of this spruce tree is kept in honor of famous botanist William Henry Brewer. This tree is also known as weeping spruce because of the way it’s branches hang down. These types of specimen trees give a perfect unique appeal to your garden. Weeping spruce is the winner of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award. Brewer spruce trees dwell well in cool, wet winters and dry, warm summers. It is native to Southern Oregon and Northern California, and it can grow upto 30-50 feet.

Oriental Spruce, Caucasian Spruce

Oriental spruce are also popular types of spruce trees, also known as the Caucasian spruce. It can live in most varieties of soil but needs to be protected from strong wind. This is a slow-growing tree and works well as a conifer, and features ½ inch needles, which are shorter than other types of spruce trees.

If you are looking for a spruce tree with yellow needle leaves, then try Aureospicata, Skylands, and Aurea cultivators. Nana and Barnes are dwarf cultivators, while Gowdy has a columnar shape. The tree is mostly found in turkey. 

Colorado Blue Spruce 

The Colorado blue spruce tree is native to the Rocky Mountains of the South of Montana. It has blue needles in various shade ranges. Glauca Pendula and Glauca Variety is a light blue weeping cultivator. If you want short height types of spruce trees for your garden, try Glauca Globosa, Fat Albert, and Glauca Jean’s Dilly. 

Colorado Blue Spruce is the state tree of both Utah and Colorado. It can take droughts well and does not require a lot of watering in hot areas. The height it can reach is upto 60 feet.

Read More:– Best Trees For All-Year-Round Greenery

Dwarf Alberta Spruce

The dwarf Alberta is one of the unique types of spruce trees. This type of white spruce is conical in shape with dwarf shrub and soft bright green needles. This makes a great choice for Christmas trees and is also used to create spiral shrub topiary and many other shapes. Dwarf Alberta Spruce was found in Alberta, Canada, in 1904.

Engelmann’s Spruce 

This tree was named after George Englemann, a physician, and botanist. People also consider it a subspecies of white spruce trees because of its narrow conical shape. This is a very common type of spruce tree and is mostly found in the Rocky Mountains’ higher elevated areas. 

The wood of this spruce species is used in the lumber industry and also to make musical instruments. However, it is not a good species to grow in warmer climates. Engelmann spruce trees can live for as long as a thousand years and can go upto 100 ft, given the favorable conditions.

Norway Spruce

Norway spruce is most commonly used as a Christmas tree and also for lumber construction. These particular types of spruce trees are used to make stringed instruments because it offers good resonation. If you are looking for a unique species of tree than 

Inversa, weeping dwarf spruce will be a great attention catcher. This particular specimen needs soil with good drainage and does not grow well in wet soil. Norway spruce can grow upto a height of 40-60 feet and is mostly found in Central and Northern Europe.

Red Spruce

Red Spruce is often grown as a Christmas tree and also to use its wood pulp. This particular species of spruce tree grows upright in an oval shape and can live for extremely long years. These types of spruce trees are usually found in the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. 

You can plant this in areas with better shade where it can stay cool and get adequate moisture. However, acid rain can be harmed and does not make a great companion tree in urban areas. It is named after its red color bark. In some places, it is also known as yellow spruce because of the colors of its wood.

Serbian Spruce

The Serbian Spruce tree is a native plant of the Balkans. This tree can tolerate a certain level of drought and requires full sun, although it prefers medium levels of moisture in the soil to grow well. Serbian spruce makes a great choice for urban landscapes because it withstands air pollution. This is one of the best types of spruce trees for hot, humid climates and can even grow upto 100 feet tall.

Sitka Spruce

The Sitka Spruce is the state tree of Alaska and is one of the tallest species of spruce. It can grow as tall as 300 feet in the wild. You can easily spot this in California and Alaska. Till today the largest recorded specimen of Sitka spruce was 318 feet. However, when cultivated at landscapes, it remains short in height, reaching a maximum upto a 100 feet.

White Spruce

People grow white spruce trees to sell commercially as Christmas trees. It also makes a great specimen tree for windbreaks or in landscapes. The needles have a waxy white coating of the spruce leaves, which is the reason for its name. This is a hardy tree but is sensitive to pollution.