hey rain ...

how big is the yard????

you may be overplanting.. depending on the answer ...

ken

"The Metasequoia and spruce are planted about 10 feet apart. Can I plant a Ponderosa at 10 feet to make a triangle? "

Too close for the long term. Make that 10 metres, and you'll be OK.

Resin

The lot is 100x100 feet. I've read that the Colorado blue spruce won't get much wider than 10 feet. I've seen conifers in the forest closer together than 10 meters. In urban settings, I've seen several conifers in a 30x50 foot space. I'll be pruning off the lower branches as these trees get taller, to leave enough space to walk under and around. Right now the Metasequoia (NOT Sequoia!) is about 50-60 feet high, and the Colorado spruce is about 15 feet high.

Is there a Pine I can add to this mix?

Rain2Fall

Jeffrey pine is handsome. It gets huge, too. The spruce and dawn redwood will not look better with lower branches cut off. Since the pines have nice bark, these can be limbed up once they are far enough along to achieve an attractive result - perhaps decades from now.

Young conifers with conical crowns look like they are floating or resemble arrowheads when the bottom branches are skinned off. The lower branches coming out of the socket-like "armpits" that form near the base of dawn redwood is much of its appeal. Cutting these off would remove this effect.

Think of how you would like a Christmas tree to look in your living room and that is the same appearance young garden conifers in particular need to have in order to look their best.

Kinds such as the spruce that would otherwise develop a more or less columnar outline in time, with the branches going all the way to the ground are much less impressive with the basal skirt removed.

I appreciate the input, especially on pruning. I shudder when I see botch jobs. These two trees are in the wrong place, and they're both too big to move. The Dawn Redwood is smack in the middle of the side yard. It looks naked all winter, and lonely the rest of the year. The blue spruce behind it has started a three-pronged crown, an effect I find unappealing. Together their branches prevent planting or walking in the south end of the side yard. the side yard is 50x70.

I'm imagining a little woodsy "campsite" kind of feel -- a few nice tall confiers to fill out the rest of the south end and create a nice shady area with a few other woodland plants for understory and groundcover.

IMHO, I think both of these should have been planted near a rear corner of the lot.

Maybe I need to get somebody out here to look at it and give me some advice.

To bboy:

You are SO RIGHT! about not pruning off the lower branches of the Blue Spruce. I've been driving around, looking at them. The ones pruned that way look like they are on stilts. I think I'm okay, because I only pruned the bottom 2-1/2 feet, and the branches sweep downward.

Rain2Fall