I GENERALLY DON’T LIKE MY CONIFERS SHORN or buy them very big (too uptight for me, and too expensive). But when I met this concolor fir (above) one Christmas at the local nursery, where it was on display at the entry to their holiday shop, I knew we were meant for each other…despite those very issues. Abies concolor ‘Candicans’ is the third in a series on beloved conifers.
I have two other Abies concolor here (I know, there’s evidence of my former “everything in threes” insanity again), the other two grown naturally, unshorn, and therefore quite different-looking. I won’t tell you what I paid for the big guy, all thick and a perfect pyramid and already near 10 feet tall when he came to me to live on my hillside of a backyard, among the crabapples and a giant island of ornamental grasses. The others were scrawny little things, maybe 3 feet high, though each is more than 15 tall now.
The white, or concolor fir, a Western American native species ranging from Colorado to Southern California, New Mexico and into Mexico, can grow to 100 feet in the wild, apparently, but in a garden setting you are more likely to see it get to 30 or maybe 50 feet in time, and half as wide.
Its long needles, which are particularly silvery-blue in the cultivar ‘Candicans,’ curve outward and up. Unlike the Colorado blue spruce, Picea pungens glauca, the fir’s foliage is soft to the touch, far less stiff. It is also far less trouble-prone than the Colorado blue spruce, which if you’ve encountered with a case of spruce gall or spider mites or the canker that can affect lower branches, you will know how disfiguring these issues can be. Stated simply: If you want a big blue pyramidal conifer in Zones 4-7 this fir is it (just not in heavy clay, which it apparently will not tolerate).
I have to confess that though it’s a conifer, I haven’t made much notice of the concolor’s cones. They’re said to be up to 6 inches by an inch and a half, so I don’t know how I could have missed them, unless it was because I have a flashier-coned cousin of it, the Korean fir, Abies koreana, growing right nearby.
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This is my favorite conifer. I plant them for clients whenever I can find good ones. The good ones are snapped up quickly in my local wholesale nurseries. They are a tree worth having and spending on. Oh what a lovely blue.
We used a Concolor for a Christmas tree last year and gave it a lovely planting afterwards (the weather was good) and although it appeared to come through the winter ok, it never grew and by droughty midsummer it was clearly dead. Too bad, it was a pretty tree.
This is such a beautiful tree. I’m really loving your beloved conifers posts, it’s timely for me, since I’ve lost a couple trees and have some room for new stuff, and I’ve been looking for conifers to fill the void.
A great conifer, and a great citrus fragrance.
@Susan: Shop early and often. :)
@John: I have killed many a “live” Christmas tree. Can be tricky and stressful, especially as you say followed by drought.
@Megan: I have many more coming…now I want to hurry to give you lots of choices. :)
@Kathy: Citrus? So out I went after reading that, though the snow and ice, to see (smell). Maybe pine with a touch of tangerine or orange peel?
i have a lot of conifers on my property, courtesy of someone who owned my property about 4-6 decades ago and said, why don’t i do something right, whether or not i live to see it…my eyes (and nose) to his(/her?) eternal grace. a prayer every time i walk outside!
I am loving this series as well, even though the conifers in your area are quite different from the conifers in my beloved east texas piney woods (if you google this there is a great wikipedia page about them).
Would love to have one of these beautiful blue babies but I think we are just a little too warm.(zone 8). Thanks for sharing.
Amen to all the conifer <3. I look forward to more pics, Margaret, and let’s continue this love-fest!
This is a beautiful conifer that clearly announces the coming of christmas with its long needles and beautiful blue color. In my town it is very difficult to find a tree such as this one, but when one is available it is bought very quickly. You got lucky finding one of these size and color, and looks especially healthy. And like another commenter above, the hardest part of owning one of these magnificent trees is the after christmas survival and trying to plant it and last until the next year.
Welcome to the Wholesale Christmas Farm. The farm near me always has a few really good one like this, balled and burlapped, to decorate their nursery. They mulch them in their nursery heavily to carry them over the winter, then plant for the customers the next spring. Nice to hear from you, and do come by again.
As a professional Christmas tree grower here in Oregon, I must say that I find the Concolor to be a magnificent tree. But when I took a handful of them to our Christams tree lot in Los Angeles last year, they were so different from what people there have seen in the past, that they just didn’t sell at all. People really do come to like best the trees that they are familiar with. On the West coast, that means Noble, douglas and Grand Fir.
Welcome, Mark. I agree; it’s a hard sell for the holidays indoors. A nursery here sells a good number, but he is a real specialty and high-end place. Elsewhere you don’t see them so much as a Christmas tree. See you soon again, I hope.