BS: North American garden Question

Subject: BS: North Amer garden Q
From: maire-aine
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 02:14 PM

Hi. I hope someone can help me identify a tree in my yard. I don't have a digital camera, so I can't post a picture, but this is what it looks like. It's about 6 years old (grew up from seed) and it is about 4 feet tall. It is some sort of pine tree, I think. The needles are very tiny (an eighth to a quarter inch max) and pale bluish. They are very sharp, but they look almost feathery. It reminds me of a frost pattern on a window on a cold morning. Any ideas???

Thanks,
Maryanne

Subject: RE: BS: North American garden Question
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 02:19 PM

I'd say Colorado Blue Spruce but they are not really feathery. The ends of their needles is sharp, though if you run you hand along them from the branch out, they can be kind of soft feeling.

Subject: RE: BS: North American garden Question
From: Bee
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 05:33 PM

Could it be a variety of Juniper? They often have very tiny, sharp needles, and besides wild ones there are hundreds of cultivars.

Subject: RE: BS: North American garden Question
From: Janie
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 10:29 PM

Where are you located, Maryanne? What color is the bark?    What do the crushed leaves snell like?

Subject: RE: BS: North American garden Question
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 10:40 PM

It sounds like something in the juniper family. Needles are way too short for a spruce.

Go down to your local book store and browse the shelves for a book on native trees. Check out the junipers. Buying the book is optional.

Does the tree have any flower or cone parts yet, that you can describe? What do the branch whorls look like (does it have them?) What does the bark look like (color, consistency, etc.) and what does the apical meristem look like? That's the top growing part.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: North American garden Question
From: GUEST,number 6
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 11:08 PM

Sounds sorta like a tamarack .... if it is it loses it's needles in the winter.

Or it could be some sort of hemlock.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: North American garden Question
From: GUEST,Ally
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 03:54 AM

all my plants get flooded at heavy rain. There is a steep slope and all the water came directly in the garden can I used http://www.stormtec.net/ to blocked the water ?

Subject: RE: BS: North American garden Question
From: maire-aine
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 09:50 AM

I live in southeast Michigan, just north of Detroit. The tree doesn't lose its leaves. I think it is too young for cones. The bark is light brown. I'm going to run over to the garden center at lunch, and see if I find anything similar.

Thanks,
Maryanne

Subject: RE: BS: North American garden Question
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 11:45 AM

Sounds sorta like a tamarack .... if it is it loses it's needles in the winter.

"Tamarack" is a common name applied to several trees. In the Pacific Northwest it is applied to the larch (which is deciduous and loses its needles). Doesn't look like what she's describing. So I wonder what tree the name is applied to where you are?

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: North American garden Question
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 01:33 PM

My first big summer job with the U.S. Forest Service was to work in areas that had previously been clear cut and replanted. I surveyed the areas a few years after planting to see if the trees were growing and the determine how many native seeds had sprouted as well. I was good enough at tree ID after a while that I could identify a tree by the first few little spikes that came out of the top of the seed.

Many immature trees in the evergreen category have some intermediate stages that don't look anything like what they'll look like once they get mature leaves. Some pines can look like spruce at first, and in the first year or two the Western Red Cedar looks like a little sprig of juniper poking out of the ground.

A good way to identify trees is by smell. It isn't a method generally introduced in the plant ID books, but if you work in the woods long enough and you're not sure about a tree, chances are bruising the needles or twigs and taking a sniff will give you a good clue. I used that technique in a college botany test in college one fall after a summer in the woods, and the professor actually came over and asked me what I was doing. For the USFS I usually IDed immature trees, or trees up to 15-20 years old. But he brought in samples of trees for our test that had apparently come out of the crowns of huge mature trees in the area. The big ones pretty much look right, but because they're larger and more robust than immature trees, I was giving them the sniff test just to be sure. I think that even after I explained he thought I was a little nuts, but he should have learned from my trick. The idea that you can go through a biology class and do your ID based solely on look and not go by texture and smell seems absurd, in hindsight.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: North American garden Question
From: maeve
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 01:47 PM

Here are some handy tree ID keys that may be helpful. I agree that smell is an important identification too. Maybe one of us can make accurate scratch and sniff Tree ID Key cards!

Michigan Tree ID


Arbor Day tree ID


About.com Tree ID

Subject: RE: BS: North American garden Question
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 03:10 PM

Tamaracks/tamarisks here are correctly known as "salt cedars" and they are trying to kill them off because they are invasive, non-native, and suck up all of the water from the native species. I didn't know this until we moved back six years ago. They were a favourite of my grandma and mom. They are not blue, here. thye have a pinkish tinge to them. I wonder if that would be different elsewhere? Here hydrangeas can't grow outside, but because of the ph of the water, they are pink. I was shocked when we moved to New England, 1) to find them growing outside and 2) to see they were blue(!) because of the ph of the water.

Subject: RE: BS: North American garden Question
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 03:53 PM

Tamarisk (sp?) is different than tamarack in the places I've lived and worked. The Tamarisk in the Sonoran desert of Arizona is a Mediterranean tree that was imported and is a pest at oasis areas. Larch, in the north, turns a vivid, lovely yellow in the fall.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: North American garden Question
From: Bee
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 04:35 PM

Larix larcina(sp?) is the only tree I've known as tamarack, and also as larch and hackmatack. But in Cape Breton, it was called juniper, and the low growing conifer which is juniper (as in has little blue resinous berries which flavour gin) was called 'ground juniper'.

It's a beautiful tree, lots of 'em can be seen from my windows. In early spring it has these delicate pink buds which become the cones; by late October they are a gorgeous deep ochre yellow that just glows, and in November, the needles fall. The needles are very soft, making the branches look feathery. It does like boggy spots, and will crawl up and grow on any old rock in a bog. It's very prone to bending with the wind, or even under the weight of its own branches, so is often bent or twisted, at least around here.

Subject: RE: BS: North American garden Question
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 04:40 PM

What a beautiful description.