So you planted around 50 B&B trees? If you planted that many, I think it would be near impossible to dig all of them out without a lot of help or a machine. A couple years ago I dug a 6' B&B crap out to move it... took me a few hours to transplant and the next two days to recover lol. That's just one ONE B&B tree

I plant most of my dwarf to intermediate conifers about 15' apart. This will allow everything I have to grow 30' diameter without touching. Most of my conifers has a 10 year size of 6x3. In 40 years they should be 24'x12' give or take some which is well within my 30' limit diameter limit. I'm 30 and I don't think the ones I have planted will touch in my lifetime. Even if they do, it'll just be the bottom few feet.

But those are my medium growth rate conifers... Norway spruces grow a lot faster a lot quicker I'm sure. If you planted them 15' on center, that'll allow each one to get 30' wide before touching. I don't know how fast they grow, but if they grow a 1' wide each year you'll have at least 30 years before they touch. If they grow 2' a year you'll have only 15 years.

I planted my green giants to close (I planted these before I knew how to determine the size.) When/if these get to crowded, I plan to just remove every other one. But that could cost a pretty penny when they get 40' tall.

How far back from the 800' driveway did you plant them?

You didn't say but I assume they are species and not a grafted cultivar of some kind.

Determining the width of the spread will be based upon the life of the plant as they grow till they die.

You will not want to remove any of them when they grow together. If you do the sides will be void of foliage. Let them maintain the solid wind screen. They will not loose bottom foliage where exposed to full sun.

Also if you planted 50 a certain percentage will not make it. Just the way it is. Have a few extra planted down at the end of the row for replacements.

There is a certain gentleman that lurks on this forum. He is an expert on spruce aka Picea abies He goes by the handle of spruceman.

Maybe he will chime in for some additional advice.

Good luck,

Dave

leave them be ...

they will grow together ... to make a solid wall ...

the branches facing each other.. will.. as you think.. brown and thin.. as they lose sun ... who cares .. they will be interior ...

all facets.. facing out.. to the sun .. will grow without losing needles ... you trim up becasue you wnat the space under.. not for losing branches ...

you are having a problem 'seeing' the difference between forest trees .. and individual specimens ... and i cant think of a way of googling that to show you ...

all conifers shed needles in 1 to 3 years ... and off hand.. i am thinking this one holds for 3 years .... correct me if i am wrong ...

but come.. 20 or 30 years down the line.. if you were to crawl inside. and stand near a trunk.. they will be all nudie inside.. that is what happens.. when the interiors get shaded ...

now... listen careful ... if you want to move them.. crikey man.. focus.. MOVE EVERY OTHER ONE... lol ..... and space them 30 feet apart..; and leave half undisturbed .... and even that isnt going to be enough ... thats only 15 feet for each tree from center ...

but even still... i have one that came with my house .... and i will guess its about 20 years old.. and its already past the 30 feet wide ... its the nature of the beast ...

sounds like you have plenty of space.. move on to some new project.... you are investing way to much thought into this project ...

ken

ps: or you could harvest every other one.. over the years... for xmas trees... if you learn how to shear them to that shape ... hey.. work smart.. not hard... lol ...

In Finland fences made of Picea abies are extremely popular. Every second house is surrounded By them. Nurseries advice to plant 12ôapart so that they can sell more. I feel that about 20ô is best.That way individual plant has enough foliage in long run to stay healty and less need for replacements. Thinner than that wonôt look full in first ten years. Yours is relatively good, maby you shouldnôt touch it. It will look good for many decades to come.

Thanks for the replies.

Dave/Rick: I only planted 20 trees along about 350' of my driveway. After that my lot opens and my driveway drifts away from my property line. I planted them 13' away from my driveway. They are not a grafted cultivar. I may add a few more but overall I was thinking this project was done until I started to see yard specimens over the winter here with Norways that looked 20 or even 30' spreads, so it started making me nervous.

Ken: you're reading my mind here, I can't decide if I'm overthinking this or if I should take some time to move them in spring. I planted 10 last spring and 10 last fall, so my thinking is the ones from fall will be easy to move as they likely didn't throw out new root growth..not as sure on the spring ones. I actually like your idea of moving every other..I do have another spot where I had planned to add more norways of the same size this spring, so this would save me some money. I am going for a privacy screen here, not wind screen, so ideally I'd like to hang onto as much lower growth thinking long term. I guess if I could do this over I would've went 20-25' apart but I'm liking your idea of every other.

I'm with the "crikey man" guy..................leave em be. For whatever little benefit you might gain by giving them another five or ten feet, it will be so imperceptible, and they will grow together just as nice as can be just the way you've planted them!

I'm not spruceman, but I've probably planted more NS than anyone else on this forum. I consider them to be top-notch large-growing conifers, better than any of the spruce species native to the eastern US in my opinion. I would guess I've planted at least 2500 of them on my land by now, mostly at ten feet spacing-this is forestry, not landscaping-but more recent plantings were even tighter. It's all good. They're not going to have trouble with each other. But this only reinforces that what you have already done will be just fine.

+oM

Ken and oM, your posts have helped me visualize "the future" but I want to make sure I follow you... I have plenty of mature white pine and scotch pine on my property and I'm used to the low branches dying as they lose light, particularly those that were planted close together. I have no experience with any spruce, however. It seems you are saying that I will not lose the lower part of my wall in 10-20 years? In other words, the branches might get a little naked on the inside toward the trunk, but I should have decent needle coverage on the outside? The tree line runs east to west, so I'm guessing the needles should look ok on the north and south sides and thereby provide me a screen? I'm after a "green screen" here for the future more than anything else and will invest more time in moving the trees to get it right if need be.

You are overthinking it. Worst case you have to remove some trees in a few years. Do one a year and use it for a Christmas tree.

Digging them up and replanting them will kill a lot of them.

At 15 feet apart, each tree can develop a 15-foot (7.5 on each side) spread before the branches even touch.

Yes Tom is not me, but he knows his Norway spruce. And so does Ken. Norway spruce retain their lower branches very well, unless in fairly dense shade.

I think your 15 foot spacing will work very well. If I wanted to have perfect spacing for a row of "specimen" 60 year-old Norway spruce, I would recommend wider spacing, maybe somewhere between 20 and 30 feet (there is no "absolute" perfect spacing). But given your situation and goals there for a screen, 15 feet will do just fine. As they grow rather large, they will tend to grow together and the trees will not be so broad as they would be if given more space, but I see no problem. Enjoy!

Of course, if some grow faster, and look better than others, the weaker, less beautiful ones can be thinned out later, and that can give more room to the nicer, stronger ones. But that would most likely lead to some irregular spacing. You can decide what you would like when the time comes.

--spruce

There Eric-you've got the best Norway spruce info available on the web right there from Spruceman. And what he reports is exactly true-your trees will grow just fine and it will be longer than you or I need to care about-if ever-before a lower limb or two begins to decline. Like spruceman said, this species of tree holds its lower limbs very well.

I'd also not be overly concerned with windthrow. Anything is possible and we never know what the weather is going to do, but everywhere I look here in windy Wisconsin are big, old NS, which not only haven't been torn out of the ground by the wind, they appear to have never sufferered any appreciable weather-related damage whatsoever! I'd rank them as among the most resistant of all trees to storm damage, and I've seen a LOT of storm damage in trees!

One more thing, if you'll permit me to brag just a bit: I've got thousands of NS up at my tree farm, the oldest of which have been in the ground (from seedling) for four growing seasons. Last summer, with its cool and moist weather regime, we saw growth increments of more than four feet on many of them. The point here is, in a situation where these trees are happy-and it doesn't take amazingly good conditions to make them happy-they really do put on the growth. Beautious things to behold too!

+oM

I planted 30 Norway Spruce 3 yr. old seedlings in a row 6 feet apart running east to west in an open pasture for a privacy wall 7 years ago and at that time I researched spacing of these trees and found instructions to thin every other one after 7 years leaving an 18 ft. between trees. Is this spacing still advisable?

Ed in NH