Those torano take forever to get going but are completely hardy here in zone 5b, IL. Mine have 1.5"-2" of new growth. Buds appeared to be swelling a month ago.

Dax

I'm beginning to think that all rooted/grafted plants are on a gradient/sliding scale of how long and how much work it takes to re-establish apical dominance. But isn't it true that all of them eventually do, except the Araucarias? I seem to recall either reading or having David Parks (owner of Camellia Forest) tell me it would take years for cutting grown Taiwania to normalize. As I've posted before, too, I think some of the goofy issues with bad form/low branching seen in plants as diverse as hollies and magnolias is really because of asexual reproduction. For a conifer example, my 'Sekkan Sugi' produced annoying waterspouts for the first 5 years. Finally now that it has a good columnar shape and is over 15' high it has stopped doing that.

You may be staking for quite a while but they should gain apical dominance. There will be the rare few.

Dax

Picea martinezii indeed looks spiny.

"There will be the rare few."

Do you mean the rare few that never regain apical dominance?

Yes. Very rare. Maybe 1 in a couple hundred.

Dax

3 of my Picea martinezii last spring before growth had stopped.

Johnny

Thanks for the update ! that is a really nice plant

gosh , it's feb. we are due for bunch of snow here . you look like planting time

jealous , ron

EDIT . or did you say last spring ?

That was spring 2019!

Johnny