I have none of your cultivars, but I have the species per your second question. My Canadian Hemlock sits exactly at that spot you are describing. It sits on the North-East corner of my garage for 24 years and grows beautifully. Except it tries to grow to 80 ft and I prune it back to 9 ft, will get replaced in 1 month.

Hello John(?), and welcome. Lots of collectors here and some genuine old-timers with conifer lore far exceeding most experts as well. It's a great spot for help and info.

First, my experience with Canadian Hemlock is brief(3-4 years), but it seems exceptionally shade tollerant, perhaps more so then all but a handful of 'large' conifers.

Next, since these plants will be small, hopefully you're able to provide the patience and early years care they'll need. It's not much but mostly it means watering during droughts and perhaps a little bit of sun protecton for both 'Perry's Gold' and 'Moonfrost'. Both are lovely with some sun but may also burn in 90-110 degree heat you might see there. Afternoon shade would result in the best looking plants in my opinion. The rest should be OK in full sun.

Picea engelmannii 'Blue Magoo' is a very neat cultivar - you picked out some great plants.

-Will

1. All the plants are nice plants. Give 'Moonfrost' a bit of room. Mine grew faster than I expected.

2. The exposure you describe should be good for a St. Louis hemlock.

tj

Thanks for the info, guys. Much appreciated!

It looks like there are a couple of hemlocks in my future.

One thing I've noticed is that songsparrow nursery is listing several picea abies cultivars are being amenable to partial shade, which I find surprising. I always thought abies needed full sun. There is a small cultivar called hillside-upright that might work for me in one particular location (different from the one mentioned above), as it too is "partial shade," but I question the listed sun requirements. The spot I'm thinking of gets maybe 3 to 5 hours of sunlight during the summer and less during winter...

I'm glad you started this thread, johnplace, as I will be getting the 'Moon Frost' this spring (hopefully next week.) I wish I could give you some information about the trees you are considering, but I am pretty new to this world of conifers so have little to add to the discussion. :-o I hope you don't mind my adding a question to your thread....

@ tj: Though I believe the site I have planned for it will have the correct sun exposure, as recommended by others in this thread - morning sun, afternoon shade/dappled shade - I am a bit concerned about your statement "Give 'Moonfrost' a bit of room. Mine grew faster than I expected." How big do you think this cultivar might get? I realize that trees never stop growing, but from what I read, in 10 years it should only be about 3'x 4'....Do you expect it to get quite a bit larger than that? If so, I may need to adjust my plan a bit.

Holly

My 'Moonfrost' went from 6"x6" to 2'x1.5' in three years. If this keeps up it will be around 5x5 in 10 years. But, then again, hemlocks are quite variable with different cultural conditions.

tj

Thank you for relating your experience with the cultivar's growth rate, tj. I just read on this site - 'Moon Frost' - that the growth rate actually increases with age, which is not what I wanted to hear, and yet, in the same description, they say it remains a "reliably small dwarf!" Seems contradictory; guess I better plant it where it can stretch out a bit.

Holly