There will be some growth beginning around the end of April but how strong depends on how much they are sulking from the planting. They might hit their stride or just put out an inch of new growth. Enjoy the fact that they lived and if the new growth is modest then next year it will be fine.You crossed the worst hurdle already.

The Norway is a tough cookie and could motor on this year. Koreana's can be very emotional (though your SL buds look fine and fat)

based on your location.. who knows ....

if they do not grow at all.. they are dead .. they arent going to just sit there and do nothing for a year ...

who clipped all the terminal branch ends off???

ken

I never clipped them so I'm assuming the nursery did. Why would they do that?

Shouldnt there be some kind of growth by now? I know conifers and deciduous are two different animals but I can see the buds already setting on my deciduous trees. Conifers don't seem to give a clue to new growth.

I've never really payed attention to conifers before and I was bitten by the bug last year so be patient with me.

Some growth can be expected. It take the roots 3 years for roots to develop enough to put on substantial growth on the topside of new plantings.

It does depend on what species you are dealing with, where you are, how different your climate is from the nursery where the plant was grown, what your weather has been like, and probably a host of other factors.

My picea abies are all pushing new growth, but none of my abies koreana are. Furthermore, the Norway spruces that I recently acquired from nurseries in the Pacific northwest are much further along with their new growth than the spruces that have been in the ground here for several years. Here in North Georgia we typically have freezes in late March and frosts until early-mid April.

For what it's worth, the conifer species which is most "behind" in my yard is picea orientalis. At this time most of the buds on those plants are so small they're almost invisible.

The only situation I've seen when a viable plant hasn't pushed new growth is a newly grafted one. Sometimes you have to wait a year or two before the graft will begin growing.

As others have said, it's going to take a few years before the plant settles on a stable growth rate, and that, too, will depend on your local climate.

Easy to remember- first year they sleep, second year they creep, third year they leap.

Heh, when will they grow you ask? When soil temp reaches right around 48 degrees F give or take, and air temps stay consistently above freezing!

Your 'Paul's Select'' will very likely produce at least some significant new growth this year. I've not worked with that cultivar but I have planted right around 4000 Norway spruce on my land to date. They are growers, to say the least. And let me see-where are you....OK, don't see that info, but mine are way up in cold, cold Northeastern Wisconsin, in an area of short growing season. Last year and the year before, quite a few of mine put on 4 ft. of new growth! That's moving.

I'm in a 5a Tom. There is not a lot of info on Paul's select Norway. I don't think it will grow as fast as a regular Norway.

Yeah, thought of that shortly after posting the above. You're probably right although I know next to nothing about this cultivar excepting that it has come up here lately, and at least in some photos, appears to have the glaucous thing going on. One other self-correction.....maybe......in some research I've been doing on just exactly what constitutes the beginning of the "growing season", I've learned that perhaps 5 degrees celsius, which is 41 F, might be a better guideline temp for when soil is warm enough for things to happen. That temp is the cut-off point for almost all microbial activity in soil, it seems, but of course, this world is full of exceptions to everything!

Regardless, for the layer of the onion that you're on, growth will commence soon. That is, if it ever warms up!

absolutely nothing is showing growth in my z5 MI ... you need to take a deep breath ... and just wait.... like the rest of us ...

as tom said ... its not air temps.. its soil temps AT ROOT DEPTH ... and that is very dependent on how cold it gets at night .. not during the day ...

just be patient ...

it was said above.. the first year they sleep .... they have to bud out.. or they are dead .. they are not totally inanimate the first year ... do not misinterpret sleep ...

ken