Not sure exactly how cold-tolerant it is, but it is very susceptible to drought damage, and that includes the winter desiccation that commonly goes together with cold winter weather. So I'd err on the side of caution, and give it good shelter from cold dry winds.

Resin

Great, thanks for the input!

Josh

Source #2 seems to just copy information from elsewhere on the web. He obviously isn't blogging from personal experience at all.

Whatever Treehaven was selling as Abies forrestii has been pretty darn tough. As for pineresin saying 'very susceptible to drought damage' I'd have to say "not really". My seedling haven't grown much on the top but they've probably grown some nice roots, because they breezed by the serious dry spell/borderline droughts we had this year in May and August/early Sept. They also did fine, again as unprotected seedlings, in the past 2 very cold winters. I do still worry about root rot down the road and if I can ever get the hang of conifer grafting, will try to put the best clone on Nordmann fir. Why "the best clone"? Because of the 3, two seem to break bud earlier. I think that's likely to be one of the only problems with them in a zn 7 mid-Atlantic climate. Fortunately the microclimate where I live has cool springs and hasn't had a spring freeze in 10 years. Every year, the neighborhood M soulangeanas complete their blooming w/o damage...something that I don't remember happening so regularly in the DC suburbs. (likewise considered a possible issue with A. firma, but mine are always OK and mature their first flush. We did have a close call this year but in only hit 34F and everything was fine including my Gresham magnolia)

OTOH, a slightly larger A. delavayi (IIRC) that I bought from a PNW mail order retailer in fall of 2010 and immediately planted, died by apparent dessication in the somewhat cold 2010-2011 winter. The difference was clearly that the seedlings I planted in spring 2013 had a chance to get fully rooted before winter where the nursery grown, fall-planted plant did not. Of course I water everything newly planted as sparingly as possible so that it is encouraged to root, and fertilizer? NEVER on anything newly planted.

I'll post a pic perhaps. The rabbits do nibble them which is annoying but I refuse to have those ugly cages around everything.

This is the A. forrestii. There was a bit of burn from the winter, you can see that on the needles almost closest the lens, but it didn't kill those branchlets because the plant grew past it. (sorry the picture is a bit odd overall, I am experimenting with using a mount adapter with an old manual focus lens on a MILC camera)

It has the yellowish spotting which a number of my firs are getting and I suspect is some sort of nutrient deficiency. Fertilizing my big A. recurvata this spring corrected it on the new growth. I will probably finally give these a light sip of fertilizer next spring.

The root mass this came from via Treehaven was so tiny...just a "plug" I guess not even 1" in diamater, more like 5/8", and about 4" long. It was about 5" high so it has grown considerably in spite of my benign neglect.

A couple more conifer images while I'm posting:

My Pinus densiflora 'oculus draconis', which was a bit too flappy so had to be loosely tied. It's about 4' if pulled all the way up but I let it retain a bit of a lean. Background is Fargesia 'Green Panda'. Also visible is the stump of an Sorbus alnifolia 'Red Bird' I cut down because it is prone to sudden, rapid fireblight during wet spells in summer. The trunk tries to regrow, I need to give it the mercy spray of roundup LOL.

My supposed Chamaecyparis nootkatensis ‘Green Arrow', although I have my doubts I don't really care if it's a seedling. Deer buck rubbed it about 3-4 years ago which really set it back, that could be why it is 'fat', too.

Background are the 50 year old Picea abies, which are actually quite
distant. This lens has a 35 mm equivalence of 85mm, and I cropped. You can just see where I had a waterspout removed in the one to the left, leaving the canopy a little thin looking but not too bad. I also have some Lonicera I need to get out of there...but 10 years ago the whole tree on the left was covered in Lonicera and probably on the verge of being killed. I used some 2000 lbs. chain and my Kubota to pull it all out in one fell swoop. The pile of vines was about the size of a van. They cone regularly and I do find seedlings once in a while.

"This is the A. forrestii" - not sure what it is, but it isn't Abies forrestii ;-)

Here's the real thing, at RBG Edinburgh:

Resin

Yes, I have to wonder if results being reported on this thread are always based on correctly identified stock. True firs from this group tend to be kind of limited in where they can be grown well even in Britain - it is hard to believe many of them would make lasting specimens in eastern North America.

Resin, thanks but it's hard to see how you can tell from such a poor photograph. Obviously, my 8" tall plant is not going to be coning yet...right?

The only difference I can see in the pictures is that yours has shorter, stubbier needles; that trait might be subject to some kind of phenotypic variance. Here is a picture from a presumably reliable source that looks more like mine:

http://en.hortipedia.com/wiki/Abies_delavayi

If that photograph is mislabeled, please, do have "hortipedia" correct it. At any rate...do explain. FWIW, these were actually listed as "Abies delavayi forrestii" in the Treehaven catalog, and looked very different from all of the other seedling firs I ordered from them (A. alba, A. lasiocarpa, A. equi-trojani, A. nordmanianna, A. grandis). Are we to assume Sheffield Seed takes batches of seeds collected elsewhere besides China and claims they were collected in China? (I'm almost sure the owner of Treehaven said they came from Sheffield Seed) Are we to assume they just happened to have some mislabeled strain of another common fir that somehow amazingly managed not to look like at all of the aforementioned more common firs? Are we to assume some strain of say, Abies fraseri is mysteriously relabeled as an Asian fir, then manages to survive in a climate where Abies fraseri is known to be absolutely ungroweable? Are we to assume Chinese collectors claiming to collect one species herein claimed to be ungroweable in humid climates cleverly predicted the likely planting location of these seeds 1/2 way round the world and substituted something they knew would grow here, so I wouldn't be disappointed?

At this point it requires a much higher suspension of disbelief to trust you (based on this poor photograph of a wonky seedling!) than to trust that all of the other points of failure, actually failed. In all likelihood, they were collected in some alpine area of SW China. In all likelihood, they are an alpine fir from that region. In all likelihood, doomsday predictions of these being absolutely ungrowable anywhere but the west coast of Scotland and alpine regions of SW China are simply incorrect. (BTW someone has a even harder to grow Abies spectabilis in Piedmont NC, that was grafted onto Abies firma. That is still alive in spite that area not being alpine SW China)

And btw, even Resin never definitely said the somewhat sickly looking Abies delavayi in the Shenandoah Valley belonging to spruceman WASN'T that species. So, it can likely grow here, maybe not looking great but then that doesn't stop millions of people from planting Picea pungens LOL. It sure as heck looked like photographs I'd seen of them, and spruceman said it had the correct cone color. So again, it all has to be some vast east coast conspiracy - Spruceman is lying about the cone color, I'm lying about the plant looking exactly like pictures I've seen of immature A. delavayi, Greg what's his name in PA who grafted it was lying about where he got it...etc. etc.

There are a lot of different species of silver firs, many of them with purple cones. When you get into what has been called the Abies delavayi Complex you are probably talking about the most environmentally inflexible, cloud foresty, middle-of-remotest China, can't take any spring frost or summer drought kinds of them all. Despite there being thousands of planted firs (in addition to the native Grand fir) in communities where I live representatives of the Abies delavayi Complex are pretty much never seen outside of a very small number of collections here.

Forgive me for my outburst earlier. I'd had a difficult day of fighting an army of Hibiscus syriacus seedlings before their pods opened.

I don't know why this "plants can't grow anywhere other than places that exactly match their habitat" mentality won't die. A lot of them prefer that to be the case, some of them need it to be the case, but it's certainly the exception to the rule if you want to be picky about the climate specifics. For example in the UK they can still grow many California natives because the summers are still cool enough that root rots don't set it during the moist summers. Many E. Asian plants can tolerate the drier summers of the US east coast. Something like Metasequoia was found in an area of China that is zn 8, but is zn 5b hardy. etc. etc.

Believe me I know many SW Asian/Himalayan montane species are ungrowable in my climate; it's not like I'm trying to grow meconopsis here. If there were to be an exception a Conifer/Pinaceae/Abies would be a good place to start. After the whole fiasco of the Carlisle, PA, trees (I need to go back there to see them again but my current thinking is at least _one_ of the plants Greg called a SE Asian fir was probably a root stock that grew after the top died. However, Spruceman's tree, which came from the same "batch" via that nursery, looks very different, and I'd surmise is what the Carlisle tree I once mistakenly thought was A. delavayi, should have been...if that makes sense) Anyhow after all that, I'd somewhat scrutinized these seedlings. They have a "whiter" back to the needles than any fir I've ever seen. They have the crusty resin covered buds. They had the right overall needle morphology. So, if Resin actually saw some detail I missed, he should be so kind as to explain himself. (You'd have to assume Chinese traders believe there to be some huge demand for these firs such that instead of honestly collecting them, they substitute some other low elevation fir that, presto...looks and smells just like the real thing should, to this layman's eyes and nose. That's highly improbable. The only obvious, cheap substitute possibly used for forestry in China would be Abies firma...and they are most definitely not that. It's a highly implausible scenario...this isn't some rare orchid or cycad. (or meconopsis!))

* - which, in the grand scheme of things, maybe it really isn't. The hotter air is, the more humidity it can hold. It's never _not_ humid here in the summer. Notwithstanding soil (and air, obviously) temps being higher in summer, you're still talking: climate with seasons, climate with cold winter, climate with moist summers. Although the dewpoint is lower in montane SW China, it's very close to the high temperature. All of the western US firs die here because in contrast, their summers are very dry, with dewpoint 40F or more below the air temp. So the only thing these firs would have to adapt to, is having a higher soil temperature in summer. Calocedrus growing to be 80' trees at Longwood Gardens are making more of an adaptation than these SW Asian plants. Again, if some early pioneers hadn't tried to plant Sequoia sempervirens on the east coast 60 years ago, the maritime climate supremacists would say "impossible, they would never grow for more than a couple years on the east coast. The climates are far too dissimilar". ( they are at least as dissimilar as SW Asia and the US east coast!) In fact one of the only posts I remember making on gardenweb back in the late 90s - an era I can't even remember what user ID I was using - was correcting someone who had said that about redwoods. I had the argument several times since then, including with someone whom I vaguely recall had characterized himself as some kind of academic expert on conifers. He was shocked there really were redwoods on the east coast.

I know we're getting off topic, but there is a perfectly healthy coast redwood in the middle of Atlanta that's been growing there for decades.

The conditions often have to be perfect, but many conifer species can grow in climates wildly dissimilar to where they are found naturally. And, many times the absence of a conifer species in a particular climate has less to do with the hardiness or adaptability of the conifer to that climate and more to do with the ability of angiosperms to out-compete the conifer in the wild. Indeed, the evolutionary success of angiosperms has led to the limitation of many conifers to niche habitats. But in our gardens we can pluck out the oak tree that would, in a few years, quickly outgrow our favorite fir or spruce.

Zonal Denialists always seem to think everything starts with them. I am talking from an awareness of an existing history going back a long time with representatives of the Abies delavayi Complex in western cultivation, with their naturalistic character serving to indicate why they are so limited geographically as garden ornamentals - you may very well be trying to grow the Abies equivalent of Meconopsis.

'Zonal Denialists always seem to think everything starts with them.'

Quite to the contrary, given the examples I've previously cited...the Calocedrus at Longwood, the Sequoias elsewhere on the East Coast, it's beyond obvious to anyone with even the most elementary reading comprehension (?) that I'm completely aware that experimental horticulture is almost always in a historical context and framework. In fact one of the things I asked for at the Longwood archives, years ago, was a list of plants they _had_ tried that were not on the current list of garden plants. Answer was they'd have to "get back to me about that" after giving me the contact information for the official archivist...but I decided not to push my luck by following through. (I'd used the library as a reference a couple times by then...since it's a free resource for the community that doesn't require paid admission to enter, I didn't want to be a pest.) I've even posted details of researching rare primary source material, like a book published in the 40s about the gardens of Philadelphia and the history of plants cultivated therein. Talk about preaching to the choir LOL. You probably couldn't have picked a more inappropriate person to make that remark to.

These just aren't very glamorous plants compared to say, the SW Chinese species of rhododendrons. For example the David Leach book mentions in passing that a Rhododendron rex survived for some years in SE PA. But, obviously, since they are not at all common in SE PA, that species presents challenges in our climate...as one would expect. But Leach didn't also write a book about "cool plants that accompany rhododendrons of the world" noting whether anyone had kept an Abies delavayi alive in SE PA.

Agree with Embothrium's comments - the delavayi complex really are very difficult to satisfy. Perhaps not too surprising considering they grow in some of the wettest high-altitude monsoon climates in the world; some places they grow get 2-3 metres of rain <i>per month</i> for most of the summer.

The Hortipedia pic does look like the real thing; it shows the leaves with revolute margins (a rain-shedding adaptation). Though I'd not generally call Hortipedia a reliable resource  In general, plants in this complex are noted for their sparse branching (particularly so as young plants) with stout shoots, and when mature a very distinctive crown shape somewhat reminiscent of a Jewish menorah.

Resin

The owner of Treehaven finally emailed me that the seed for this (my plant) came from the China National Tree Seed Company. So, count the Chinese government as in on the vast conspiracy to mislabel unknown fir species which strongly resemble alpine SW Chinese fir species but are not alpine SW Chinese fir species, as alpine SW Chinese fir species. LOL. Seriously, though, in all fairness I took Resin's comments seriously - or at least an order of magnitude more seriously than he took mine. The ONLY species seedling this could plausibly be mixed up with is Abies koreana. (as in...it obviously isn't any fir native to North America, etc. etc. and then eliminating all of the other prospects by similar logical inferences) So, at the appropriate time when the plant is old enough to compare completely and not based on a tiny bad internet picture, i.e., it has cones etc., that it what I will type it against. If everything about it then seems like an alpine SW Chinese Abies, I will believe it to be that. Just as I believe my coast redwoods to be real coast redwoods and not some unknown-to-science imposter species that can somehow "miraculously" survive hot humid summers, even though the area of nativity of the "real" coast redwood has never had hot, humid summers in tens of millions of years of Earth history...

Hi all,

So, I did end up getting an Abies georgei from Western Evergreen, or at least what I hope is one. Take a look: does it look right? It was a little different than I'd expected from photos I'd seen.

Thanks!

Josh

Any updates on these plantis? are they still alive? also, there is a very old specimen of Abies forrestii var.georgei at Highland Park that probably dates back to Elwanger Nursery days.

Well, I'm the only one still around I think. Sorry to let you down. 🤣

Quite to the contrary, given the examples I've previously cited...the Calocedrus at Longwood, the Sequoias elsewhere on the East Coast, it's beyond obvious to anyone with even the most elementary reading comprehension (?) that I'm completely aware that [my] experimental horticulture is almost always in a historical context and framework.

I count this among my favorite moments of dealing with the various personalities I have encountered here over the years, even though I'd forgotten about it 'cause this thread is so old! And I'm compelled to point out RN, for some reason, that Longwood continues to plant monkey puzzle trees, which continue to die. A professional horticulturalist I encountered recently remarked on seeing some there this year. I guess between them and Swarthmore, they hope if they plant enough of them, they will eventually hit the genetic lottery with some that survive!? At at rate, far more 'horticulturally transgressive' than the sum of 'advice' I've given here in the past 20 years. Surely hundreds of people have already tried monkey puzzles on the east coast, based on seeing them de facto endorsed by the 'prestigious' Longwood. People are asking themselves the wrong questions, of course: why doesn't Longwood have any that are 40-50' high? Digression over.

Anyhoo...all my ungrafted 'high elevation Asian Abies seedlings of some stripe' eventually died of root rot. It took about 4-5 years for some of them - slower than stuff like Abies lasiocarpa that died its first summer! - and hurricane-level rainfall to really saturate the soil and make Phytophthora go wild. Our friends in the PNW seemingly refuse to graft most straight species firs, (Porterhowse was the last to do it, and I kick myself for not buying more of them) so I am limited with what I can try. They do offer a normal growing, not dwarf, cultivar of Abies squamata grafted onto firma...and I can now say I was resoundingly right with what I postulated above years ago.^ These firs DO NOT need constant mists and highs in the 60s all summer! When it's hot here, so close to the Bay, it's always at least a little bit humid. In, say Kansas or North Texas, YMMV. It's grown fine, but slowly, in the past two hot and dry (rainfall-wise) as hell summers. It hasn't even needed that much supplemental water, although, with a fir not having many ways to show drought stress other than death, I wasn't going to be too tough on it! This will be its 3rd year in ground, and I haven't watered it so far...so far, so good. I will probably water it soon if nearby soil test digging shows it getting very dry...and they probably will. I have a backup if it comes to that but my plan it definitely to not let it die!

On another front, my variegated western firs grafted to firma are FINALLY sizing up, after almost 8 years of languishing. And maybe me being too stingy with fertilizer? Either way, it's a relief to see them doing well finally. I think being variegated and grafted is a 'double whammy' that perhaps suppresses their vigor in the first few years. I'll try to update this with a pic of one later.

Final 'grumpy UBG' coda about the PNW nursery-industrial complex grafting for root rot resistance. In addition to my general irritation with their limited scope of offerings (for example, I feel like Don Howse would have tried Lawson Cypress on a Hinoki Cypress...I can't get anyone else to do that.*) I recently noticed a bit of rootstock growth on a fir I've had for years. Proof a dormant bud can still spin up the old mitotic processes for some reason. And I was quite annoyed to note the needles didn't look right for firma, and had an odor. Meaning they were grafted onto something other than pure firma. This would make sense since firma seed is expensive and hard to come by. Oh well. It is surviving so far, that's what matters. Maybe they got the seed of a local firma, and it was pollinated by something else, hopefully 'just' a Nordmann that would still be able to grow around here. (SC, not as much. Good luck to anyone down there!)

^ - Jason the bumper will know they are closely related to A. delavayi et al, but footnoting that fact for people who might not...

* - hell, with Atlantic White Cedars dying of obvious root rot around here, I wouldn't mind someone making that pairing, too!

Oops, I just thought of something not-entirely-scientifically implausible: one could suppose that because the scion is a fragrant fir, it's somehow transporting oils to that tiny bit of rootstock growth. Maybe. All I will say though is whenever I've gotten a fir grafted onto firma that had a bit of the rootstock showing, that rootstock was fragrance free, as all the true firmas I've encountered, are.

(Funny twist that the hardiest Euc, E. lacrimans, is also a wierdo in the genus for having little to no foliar odor. I even checked on the native ones when I was in the Snowy Mountains. It's true! Apparently something about being an outlier species in genus reduces your changes of having generally recognized traits of that genus. Not really surprisingly when you think about it. I should discuss this with Claude LOL. Alas, unlike Abies firma, E. lacrimans is not very 'hardy' to Phytophthora. My second one died after a huge downpour, even though it was planted on a slope. My only hope is for someone in the PNW to cross it, ideally with E. parvula which so far has seemed the best Euc around here. It's definitely less hardy though. I'd say realistically they are all 8a for true long term hardiness, except E. lacrimans which is 7b or even 7a. E. niphophila probably similar, but I found it even more root rot sensitive so never even got one to establish. Tony Avent sells Omeo Gum as zone 7, but it's 'North Carolina zone 7' hardy. Believe me, you ain't gonna see any full sized ones at 'zone 7 Longwood' any time soon! Even the ones at the Aussie embassy in DC are gone, last I heard.)

EDIT: the "all" above being "all Eucalyptus called hardy"!

Oh and RE: hardiness, A. squamata has been JUST FINE in the recent, two cold winters! No damage! Of course, here it did not go below 0F, so not a true test, probably. A species like that is surely, generally used to cold winters. Even though its habitat is no colder than zone 7, maybe 6.

I've read that A. forrestii var. georgei has shown to be similar to the other Sino-Himalayan firs.

They're plenty cold hardy, considering the elevation of their native range and are late bud breakers.

But if you're in an area with late season frosts in the spring, new growth will be damaged.

It also states it will recover and break new buds, in time.

" They're plenty cold hardy, considering the elevation of their native range and are late bud breakers." Right - it's safe to say you can add at least a zone of hardiness, sometimes more, to the hardiness of most Asian plants, beyond their native habitat. So when I said "Even though its habitat is no colder than zone 7, maybe 6." Which would explain an old one in the formerly 5b Rochester, NY. That being said, as I'm always pointing out, any place, anywhere near Siberia has strong coupling between average lows and record lows, because of the Siberian High!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lhasa

Any North American city with an average winter low of 19F, would be very, very lucky to have a record low of only 2.3F! Compare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence,_Kansas#Climate

As for the early growth of this complex of firs, it hasn't been a problem here, yet, even though we had our worst round of spring freezes this year, ever. Maybe this clone of A. squamata - since it is a clone of course - was selected for later growth.

I'll post some pics later today.

Speaking of slow growth:

My A. Nordmann broke bud nearly the same time as my P. mariana, but has been much slower growing than the spruce and for that matter, any of the other Firs here. The top bud is still in the swelled stage, but lower branches are putting on some growth.

Canaan Fir:
newly planted with a cut root.

Well I would propose with Abies firma coming from central and southern Japan, it is possibly even less prone to late freezes than one from northeastern China. Just guessing! One has to balance 'proximity to Siberia [n high pressure system]' with 'an island, so therefore maybe less likely to warm up quickly in spring'.

Let's quickly index a month to an average high temp, and compare the record high temp for that date range.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harbin#Climate

April has a high of 57F, with a rather surprising record of 90F.

Compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsuyama#Climate

March has an average high of 57F, but a record of only 81F.

Conclusion: the firs of NE China probably delay their growth to avoid being 'fooled' by temperature swings. I've always thought the Siberian high more as holding typical winter temperatures consistently down, which means what it's limiting is the available range of swings further down, not swings upward.

This is not intended to brag, but only to differentiate: my Abies firmas are now gorgeous, symmetrical, 35'+ specimens from a 2010 planting. Only one, in the lower, more frost prone part of the yard, ever developed a split leader that is one of the telltale signs of spring freeze damage. (fortunately, I was able to correct it at the time with my tree guy's longest lopper pole...I've have to get a boom truck in these days!) Although a certain person was always telling me my climate couldn't possibly be less prone to spring freezes, it generally was for most of the lives of these trees. It's concerning that weather has gotten so crazy that we had a year like this year, with not one but two surprise late freezes, but even that I'd put into perspective: it wasn't like what happened down in NC (IIRC) where an entire collection of Gresham type magnolias were destroy by temps going into the mid 20sF after they were in full leaf, weeks after they'd flowered. The first 8 years or so of my 'Phelan Bright' blooming, it was never frosted. Same for the run of the mill soulangeanas in my neighborhood. Then something started changing around 2020. Is this the mean we've reverted to, now, or will things swing back to sanity? Time will tell!!!!

Here is the A. squamata 'Flaky'. May not look like much, but NB, 3 years ago, this thing was a 7" tall grafted twig. So it's actually growing fairly well compared to the various other grafted firs I've tried. Excuse the bad picture, my new bargain basement Moto Stylus phone is quite an improvement in various ways, but the camera tends to make everything too bright and too saturated. (The 'instagram look' for social media zombies...🙄) I need to find a better photo app but have 50 other priorities in my life RN. It gets better reception because my prior, ancient phone from 2022 was missing one of the new cell bands...that's what matters!

Here is a firma grafted Abies concolor 'Wintergold'. It was also a mail order twig in 2020. It took six years to build it up to this size, and it finally has the rudiments of a leader forming, 'photo southeast' of the patch of herbicide sprayed winter grass. I will dig out that maple seedling soon. Is it possible I could have fed it a bit more...maybe...but I'm not sure that would have been a good idea in the long term. This thing now has a strong, extensive root system, and didn't need supplemental water in either of the past dry summers.

My advice - don't plant these variegated fir liner/mail order sizes, unless you're patient!

BTW it looks like this now but is a gergeous bright and deep yellow in winter.

Final interesting observation - I tested all my firs for fragrance of crushed needles recently. This one is pretty fragrant at some times of year, as is a nearby Abies recurvata. Not so much now. The most fragrant firs at the moment are a grafted variegated Abies procera ('Aurea'/'Sherwoodii'), and my bigger Abies pindrow. I feel like the latter, now about 15', should be flowering within the next 5 years, so I should start to get interesting firma/pindrow hybrids in the garden. Fragrant seedlings under the non-fragrant firma will be a sure sign of outcrossing, as is it with the seedlings under the firmas at National Arboretum.

Years ago I tried a firma grafted version of the variegated AND dwarf Nordmann fir. I forget the cultivar name at the moment. Well, fuggadaboutit. It grew super slow and then one year the rabbits nibbled off about half of it (the time I discovered they can go after conifers...hence the protection for the precious 'Flaky' above) and I just gave up on it...not even sure it would recover. I am pretty sure now having grown both some grafted rhodies and grafted Abies that the super vigor of grafted ACERS might be an exception: a lot of grafted ornamentals required a few years for the graft to really stabilize and the plant to start growing as fast as a seedling or rooted cutting. Maybe I'm wrong, just what I'm seeing.

Final note, re: what I said above: On another front, my variegated western firs grafted to firma are FINALLY sizing up, after almost 8 years of languishing.

The pictured one is 6 years old, the wonkier looking procera aurea is 10 years old. So an average of 8!

' Is it possible I could have fed it a bit more...maybe...but I'm not sure that would have been a good idea in the long term. This thing now has a strong, extensive root system'

david, I find this comment quite interesting. Are you saying that 'more fertilizer' may have held back root growth to some extent?

I'm always trying to imagine, if what I'm doing was done somewhere else with different soil. ;-)

" david, I find this comment quite interesting. Are you saying that 'more fertilizer' may have held back root growth to some extent? "

This was argued many years ago, between me and people who like to argue. But yeah I would probably say if you keep 'spoiling' a plant by giving it all the water and fertilizer it needs in the soil immediately surrounding its root zone, it has less 'incentive' to build a root system to find the nutrients it needs. I feel this was kind of confirmed for me when I saw one of the only videos I watched of that social media influencer lady in - Idaho? I forget exactly. She 'transplanted' one of her boxwoods that had been in the ground for, apparently, some years, and it seemed like she was digging up something she'd just planted. It had drip irrigation and was probably 'regularly fed'. It had such a tiny root system I don't know why it wasn't blowing away in the wind, TBH!

Anyhow, I suppose I could go ask AI what it thinks about this topic. But I was recently shooting the breeze with Stan Kollar, owner of Kollar nursery in the next county over from me, and he agreed...don't fertilize trees or shrubs when you plant them. Maybe fertilize them 3 to 5 years later if you believe they are moving a little slower than they should. With specific plants there are other reasons to do it, too. For example on the Rhododendron sinofalconeri hybrids I made with someone up in coastal CT...he fertilized his and they are already quite sizeable plants, maybe 2' x 3'. He he has much cooler summers...he can grow things like 'Dorte Reich' and 'Biskra' that will die down here in summer. I am sure trying to 'force feed' mine like that would have caused them to be targets of Phytophthora down here...because I've seen that it generally happens w/rhodies that are over fertilized in my area. So I fertilize much more sparingly, and the plants are still alive, mostly.

' This was argued many years ago, between me and people who like to argue. ' 🤣 I get it.

I totally agree with you. A little is good doesn't mean more is better, especially a lot more!

Location, location, location AND soil, soil, soil.

I'm in sort of in a 'Sweet Spot' here with my coarse porous soil, when I do my very, very light fertilizer applications in the spring and early summer.

Why that is; it can rain and within a few to several days of hot sunny (sometimes windy) weather, conditions are such that supplemental watering can be beneficial and a perfect time for those applications.

And without saying, knowing your plants, timing and why and how you're doing things is an important part of it.

As far as over fertilizing, I can tell you some stories, but that's a long time ago. 😉

Thanks for explaining that!

PS: Just for the record. My fertilizer program only adds nutrients that I know are missing from my poor sandy soil. What this does is; cause my plants to 'Grow Normally'. and in no way do I cause excessive, abnormal growth, that may not harden off properly before winter. ;-)

Now, back to Abies. Thanks UBG for those updates!

I was taking late spring pictures of most of my newer acquisitions this morning and I thought I'd throw them in here as an update to earlier comments I made about these trees above.

Abies nordmanniana, took a little 'hit' from the hail we had recently. And for some reason, the shock must've woke up the slightly swelled center bud that's been doing nothing for a while and is expanding now for the last couple days.

Abies nordmanniana: This was another 'pot band' purchase from last season, that I ran across during 'tree hunts' where I travel around looking for the strange and unusual. 😆

Canaan fir:

Recent Nursery 'Back Lot' pot band purchase.

Abies balsamea: A woods dug freebee, taking good form after many years in the ground.

☺️

Thanks to Bill and UBG for the "fir" updates. Your Abies balsamea has the classic fir look. Canaan fir is closely related.

PS I laugh at UBG's "social media zombie" description. I see people constantly glued to their phones. Someone in Brunswick, MD, simply walked right into a stationary railroad-car at a road crossing while glued to a phone and was injured.

Here's one of my little Canaan firs from musserforests as a bare-root mail order in it's second year. Doing OK in a rather shaded area, but I did cut back an old dilapidated lilac bush to get it some more light. The end-sprouts are this year's growth -- no late freeze damage at all.

And for the life of me, I cannot understand, how my balsam fir, has never shown signs of being nipped by a deer or rabbits, even during the deer and rabbit 'bad years' we've had in the past. In fact, the rabbits ate my Norway spruce as their 'first choice' last winter. 🫤

Another thought in regard to davids comment to me earlier in this thread.

'If you keep 'spoiling' a plant by giving it all the water and fertilizer it needs in the soil immediately surrounding its root zone, it has less 'incentive' to build a root system to find the nutrients it needs.'

Very true david. Living in a colder zone, I never thought about fertilizing long into the season, in a warmer zone, never giving the roots a chance to develop normally.

I quit feeding plants by end of June to middle of July, for the hardening off idea before winter.

And particularly with my conifers.

I'll watch the new growth and let the plant tell me when to stop.

Just through observations, I've noticed once the winter buds begin to form, the tree is telling me that I won't get much more growth out of it, for the season.

That's happening now, middle of June and that could've been bc of the above normal heat we've received.

But whenever that happens, it's time to stop fertilization.

And then hopefully get enough rain for the roots to develop normally and not just inside the mulch ring.

So, my thoughts are that I'm giving new plants, the same advantage as they would have, when they're still in the nursery pots using soilless media and needing nutrients in small amounts.

A plant nursery guy once told me, it's the first goal, one has in the spring, is to do what you can to get these dormant plants to leaf out and get healthy. After that, the plant has what it needs to photosynthesize and continue growing, using its own resources.

I don't know if he was totally correct, but I've sure got some great starts on some of these little pot-bound plants (and other better plants), doing it this way. Especially conifers.

Very slightly OT, here's a new view of my slightly taller, thinner Abies firma. I just did a visual check with my fiberglass trimming pole - I think it's about 35' tall. You have to look *really* closely, but there are cones in the upper branches.

I fertilized this twice, at most, in the past 16 years. I do remember giving it some miracle-gro a couple years after moving it to this location.

Slightly OT but on a personal note, Ben, are you following the visit of UP 'Big Boy' 4014 to the eastern US? There are some amazing vids on Youtube. Alas I don't think I'm going to have time to get up to see it, but I'm enjoying the vids. I've never seen railfans go so crazy over something! The crowds in places have been wild.

UBG, yes, I've been watching the utubes on the 4014's progression thru the east US. It'll be in Altoona, PA around July 8th for a while, but from what I've gathered, a "trackside viewing" of it may be near impossible because of the crowds. It will go thru the famous horseshoe curve just outside of Altoona (I've been there before), but just passing thru quickly. As a retired mechanical engineer, I'm fascinated by steam engines, and of course have been "trackside" quite a few times in Cumberland, MD looking over the 1309 steamer. It's not as big as the 4014, but it is the largest regularly-operating steamer east of the Rockies. Here's a stock pic of the 1309.

Here's a better pic of the details on the 1309 that I took myself at the Cumberland station as it waits to depart.

6-24-2026:

Re: Abies.

After some rain, the Nordman and the Canaan fir are set to be on their own.

The concern here is that if they are fed N at this point in the game, they could explode into wild growth that tends to not want to harden off, ever, and we don't want that.

I've only fed magnesium sulphate 1/2" teaspoon to 2 gallons water and the same for MG.

That's barely anything on any scale but they are nutrients missing from my soil.

The plants respond and I get great results from doing this. With poor soil, I'm sure the micronutrients in the MG can only help.

Anyways, time to let them go now with just water or rain, that will leave plenty of time to finish off this Fall and extend roots as they will.

They also should be in great condition, for next season, with green branches photosynthesizing all summer.

A. Nordmanniana: Planted last season from a little pot band.
Direct sun from ~10AM to sunset (12 hours approx).

The top leader finally grew a little also, hopefully keeping the apical dominance going. 🤞

>>>>>>>>>>>

A. Balsamea var. Phanerolepis:

Planted early May just last spring:

Same supplementary nutrients using Magnesium sulphate & MG.

It surprised me pushing 5" of new leader and 1" or so on most of the buds, with a couple 2-3" on a few others. 19" total height at this time.

edit: This one will enjoy a 'Full, All Day' sun exposure, with periods of partial shade, during the day this summer.

:-)

" And I'm compelled to point out RN, for some reason, that Longwood continues to plant monkey puzzle trees, which continue to die. "

Going to do a full garden review later when I have more time, but the legendary (I think we can safely call it that now) Chanticleer has joined in 'the fun'. Saw a MP there, planted in a far from ideal spot for various reasons...that was already dying LOL. story later