Colorado Blue Spruce

Description:

The Colorado Blue Spruce tree planted in parks grows to be about 15 meters tall and 5 meters wide. When the Colorado tree is in the wild it can grow up to 23 meters tall. This tree would be a columnar or conical evergreen conifer. The Latin Genus name of the Colorado Blue Spruce is Picea Pungens. The Colorado Blue Spruce tree that I examined was unhealthy, it appeared to have spider mites all over its branches. Spider mites are pests that can be ranging in color from pink to red or green and also black. The spider mite causes harm to the tree by sucking juices out of its needles. On this Colorado Blue Spruce its foliage is turning yellow and orange because the spider mites are sucking juices out of it. This tree also looks like it is loosing lots of its pine needles as a result from the spider mites. Spider mites usually appear on trees from hot dry summers and usually appear in cooler weather most likely around fall time. In this case this summer of 2017 had a very hot and dry summer which is most likely why the spider mites have appeared in fall on this certain tree.

Habitat:

This Colorado Blue Spruce was located in the south east of Olds College Botanic Gardens, 2nd tree to the left. Its surroundings consisted of the same type of trees on both sides of the Colorado Blue Spruce. There was little bit of snow covering the ground around the tree and also soil and grass all around the tree.The soil around this tree is compact. This tree would receive lots of sunlight because there is nothing covering the tree on the east and west side of the tree.

Notes:

Actions that are recommended for this tree to bring it back to its natural healthy state would be to spray insecticidal soaps or horticultural oils on the Colorado Blue Spruce tree to get rid of the spider mites. However this may remove the silvery-blue pigment that the Colorado Blue Spruce has. If you do not want to undergo this a safer way to get rid of the spider mites would be to spray the tree with jet water to remove the spider mites from the branches of the Colorado Blue Spruce tree.