the white or silver ... is a waxy coating on a green needle ...

so the rule in general for plants with waxy coatings [like blue hosta, etc] .. is to keep the wax out of the sun during the heat of the day ...

in my MI ... they take full sun ...

i just dont know what that means for your location ...

defining shade so hard with words ... because one thing for sure ... too dark ... is not good

its not that a plant wont live in too much shade ... it just may etoliate ... or stretch .. and might be thinner .. over the decades ...

one might say.. it wont thrive ... but they wont die from such ...

so my best guess .. as much sun.. or as bright as you can .. but not the heat of the day .. though your one hour in the heat isnt bad ... but not if its only one hour of sun ...

ken

White looks more like no chlorophyll.

The ideal spot for silver seedling is bright, in direct, filtered sun. Too much sun will both burn the foliage and lose the white color. This is a rare requirement, as most conifers prefer sun

I've had one of these planted for about nine months now. The tree receives filtered fun beneath some broadleaf deciduous hardwoods. It was white-ish to begin with, but the new growth this spring came in green, and it's remained green. The plant otherwise seems fine, so I'm going to leave it where it is and see what happens.

Nice! The color is so cool.

In this case the white is not a waxy coating but a lack of chlorophyll like smivies said. The needles are actually white, but Ken is right about the wax on the white-ish blue leaved plants. This plant would be able to take more sun the older it gets due to a larger established root mass being able to supply more water to the needles but most likely the white will always burn in afternoon sun or too much sun. You'll have to find the happy medium between receiving enough sun so that it doesn't look sparse and sickly and obviously not too much sun. I would think Direct morning sun with afternoon shade would be best.

I've had mine for about 6 years, have played around with it's sun exposure once and will be again (hopefully for the last time) this fall. The fence used to run along the west side so it was shaded in the afternoon and it recieved filtered morning sun through the plum tree on the east. The house is south of it but only shades it when the sun angle is low. I decided to move the fence for a couple reasons but one was to see if more sun would help it silver up. This was 3 years ago and gave it full sun from noon-ish on. No burn, but I haven't seen any improvement in coloration, it's actually been the opposite. I'm going to move it east, to the NE corner of the house where it will get morning sun until noon-ish and filtered sun/shade the rest of the day. Hopefully that's not too much sun? Less sun = more silver?

Established, this thing is putting on 8"+ a year so give it room.

An old member of this forum Coniferjoy, posted two pics of Silver Seedling on FB last year. One in a heavier shade situation and the other in much brighter shade. He said "The white color is at it's best in more shade" hopefully the FB image links below will work:

Shade is always tricky to pinpoint, so I have left my SS potted for now, and will be testing out coloration in a couple different shade settings before planting permanently.

Bright Shade/Some direct sun

Heavy Filtered Shade

Thanks all.

The only problem is that the filtered shade comes from my neighbors Hackberry tree. Id hate to plant it there and come home the next day to find the tree has been removed. I planted a Dwarf Red Horsechestnut (Aesculus Pavia) 2 years ago, but it will take several years before it is big enough to provide filtered shade.

I'm thinking I'm going to put it in a pot in the shadier spot where I want to plant it permanently, and see how it fares.