My son was given a tree at school yesterday to celebrate Arbor Day. Its a very small (think 15 cm) 'Picea glauca' or white spruce.

Can I put it in the pot rather than the ground? WIll it survive the winter in a pot?

Gryphea

Our oldest daughter got one in grade 1 - a small one like that. She's in grade 7 now. We put it in the ground when she got it and its about 2 feet tall now. A slow grower for sure but I'm hopeful that it will start to pick up the pace now that its got some bulk to it. The only thing I'm worried about is that we moved last summer so we dug it out and replanted it. I think the shock will stunt its growth this year. We'll see.

We also had a number of spruce trees pop up by themselves along our driveway. I moved them into a large pot and they survived a few winters but eventually they died. Probably not from the cold but because they would have been happier in the ground.

Plant now it'll survive, think about it for a second, they grow naturally around here.

We have two of them from when my boys were in elementary both now in their mid-thirties.

We actually moved them (the trees) from our old house to our new home 22 years ago and they are now about twenty-five feet to thirty feet tall.

As I say to my students Read The Question.

Wow! Did they pick up their growth rate at some point? Like I said, after 7 years, ours is only 2ish feet tall. But it is growing faster now than in the beginning. I think it added 8" to its height last year. I'm hoping for more than that this year but I'm worried the move may effect that.

Much better in the ground than in a pot. The soil in a pot will completely freeze in winter, killing the tree. Unless you live in the Arctic where there is perma frost, the ground remains above freezing all year.

If you do put it in a pot you must insulate the pot completely whenever there might be a frost, which I guess is a good part of the year there.

These were not that tall when we moved them perhaps three to four feet tops.

Here's as shot just taken today.

Actually the one on the right is three years older than the taller of the two, it's shorter and denser because someone cut the top of it when it was only about four feet tall and it took a long time to develop a new leader and start growing up instead of out.

I did wonder about a pot for those reasons. But a lot pf places , calgary included, get frozen ground all winter. Perma-frost is permanently frozen ground, here its just frozen in the winter, and its the reason for basements to take the foundations below winter frost level.

WE will be moving in the summer- hence the reason for a pot and I didn't want to plant it out until once we buy in year's time. I guess the solution is pot until we move to rented this summer, then ground, then dig up

Thanks

Gryph

I guess you are right about the frozen ground in winter. However, it will still be a lot warmer in ground than in a pot.

Even in the ... er ... sub-tropical climate of White Rock we insulate our pots for the winter.

Hi Gryph - everyone has beaten me too it. The above sounds fine. I'd suggest it would be better in the ground regardless, even if only for a year, and then carefully dug up when you get your own home. Disturb roots as little as possible, but after only year, they won't be massively embedded or have spread too far anyway

Bonsai

Bless you.

thank you

I was going to give you some karma but it says i have to spread it around before giving it to you again. I don't recall being familiar in the first place.

They say the mind is one of the first things to go.

I can verify.

You can verify I was familiar?