White spruce

Central Tallgrass prairie

Colorado Rockies forests

Eastern Canadian Forest-Boreal transition

Eastern Great Lakes lowland forests

Gulf of St. Lawrence lowland forests

Nebraska Sand Hills mixed grasslands

Northeastern Coastal Forests

Northeastern Hardwoods

Northern Pacific Alaskan coastal forests

Atlantic coastal pine barrens

What it needs

Conditions

Light

Full sun / Part shade

Water

Moderate water

Spacing

12 ft

Habit

Dense, narrowly pyramidal evergreen conifer with slightly drooping branches. NC State Extension gives 40 to 60 feet tall and 10 to 20 feet wide in a garden. Forest trees are bigger: FEIS gives an average of about 80 feet and more than 100 feet on good sites, Flora of North America trees to 98 feet, and Silvics of North America the tallest at over 180 feet, while trees at the Arctic treeline may be only 3.3 to 6.6 feet tall. Flora of North America describes a broadly conic to spire-like crown, slender, hairless, pinkish brown twigs, and stiff, sharp, four-sided blue-green needles 0.6 to 0.8 inches long, with seed cones 1 to 2.4 inches long whose thin, flexible scales are rounded at the tip. Silvics says it is often called shallow-rooted: in Ontario 85 percent of the root mass lay in the top 12 inches, although roots commonly go 3 to 3.9 feet deep and sinker roots can reach 9.8 feet.

Care tips

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Give it a cool site with moving air. NC State Extension says it cannot tolerate hot, humid summers and that air circulation helps dry the dense foliage; at the warm edge of its zones, a north slope or an open, breezy spot is the best chance.

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Plant it small, in spring. Plants For A Future warns that trees planted taller than about 12 to 35 inches check badly, and Silvics of North America says young transplants are prone to frost heaving, which spring planting with root pruning helps prevent.

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Avoid frost pockets. Silvics says new growth is very easily damaged by frost when it breaks bud, and that sites exposed to late spring frost should be avoided.

Lifecycle

Planting

Plant small nursery stock in spring, in full sun or partial shade. Silvics of North America says good growth needs a dependable supply of well-aerated water, that the tree will not tolerate stagnant water, and that it grows on both acid and alkaline soils; in New York most white spruce sites share an abundant supply of calcium. NC State Extension says it cannot tolerate hot, humid summers and that air circulation helps dry the dense foliage. Allow 12 to 24 feet of space, as NC State advises.

Transplanting

Move only young trees. Plants For A Future says large transplants check badly and that it is not very wind-firm in shallow soils, and Silvics of North America says slow early root growth leaves young transplants prone to frost heaving, which spring planting with root pruning helps prevent.

Early growth

Keep competing grass and weeds away and the soil evenly moist. Silvics of North America says growth is greatest in full light: in 10-year-old seedlings, half of full light cut height growth by a quarter, and at 15 percent of full light none survived. FEIS reports that planted seedlings in Alaska grew better where competing vegetation was controlled. New shoots are easily hurt by late spring frost until trees are about 13 to 20 feet tall, so Silvics advises avoiding frost-prone sites.

Maturity

NC State Extension lists needle and stem rust, canker, and trunk and root rot, plus yellow-headed spruce sawfly, spruce budworm and eastern spruce beetle, and says repeated spider mite infestations are common and can seriously injure the tree. Silvics of North America adds that budworms prefer true firs but readily attack spruce, though plantations are rarely badly hurt until trees are about 20 feet tall; that the spruce beetle attacks healthy trees; and that the cone-shaped galls of the eastern spruce gall adelgid deform young and ornamental trees. It is prone to windthrow on shallow or poorly drained soils, snow and ice can break it, and FEIS says fire of any severity generally kills it.

Propagation

NC State Extension lists grafting, seed and cuttings. Silvics of North America says the seed has a conditional dormancy that prechilling at 36 to 39°F overcomes, and that it germinates best between 50 to 75°F. Young trees root readily from cuttings, but rooting becomes too poor to be practical by the time trees are 10 to 15 years old; grafting works best in late winter in a greenhouse. At the Arctic treeline, low branches that touch the ground take root (layering).

Pollination

Wind-pollinated

Wind-pollinated, with seed cones and pollen cones on the same tree: Silvics of North America says the seed-cone buds sit in the top whorls of branches and the pollen-cone buds in the middle to lower crown. The seed cones are receptive for only 3 to 5 days, in May, June or July depending on the place, and rain or frost at that moment can spoil a seed year. Cones ripen in August or September and most seed falls in September. Plants For A Future says self-fertilized seed usually grows poorly. Nothing for a gardener to manage.

Plants don't grow alone

Seed forage

Mammal

American red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus)

The red squirrel is the main seed predator. FEIS says it cuts and caches cones before they open; in interior Alaska, where white spruce seed is its main food, squirrels took 10 to 69 percent of the cones in a medium cone year, and one squirrel may cache up to 16,000 cones a year. Seed in those caches loses nearly all its viability within 1 to 2 years, so cached cones rarely become new trees. Silvics of North America notes that seed collectors sometimes rob the caches.

Seed forage

Bird

Red crossbill (Loxia curvirostra)

Silvics of North America names crossbills among the birds that eat conifer seed, without naming a species, and says birds take far less seed than rodents. Across the white spruce range the red crossbill is a likely one; the white-winged crossbill has no entry in this catalog.

Seed forage

Bird

Black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus)

Silvics of North America names chickadees among the birds that eat conifer seed, and in a study cited by FEIS the boreal chickadee was one of the three most numerous birds in white spruce forest. The boreal chickadee has no entry in this catalog; the black-capped chickadee, which shares the southern part of the white spruce range, is a likely visitor.

Shelter / habitat

Mammal

White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus)

FEIS says white spruce gives good cover for moose, white-tailed deer and ruffed grouse, and that in the Black Hills its stands may give white-tailed deer important thermal and hiding cover in summer and fall. Deer seldom eat it: FEIS says wild hoofed animals rarely browse white spruce, although NC State Extension says deer, rabbits and grouse browse the foliage in winter.

Shelter / habitat

Bird

Eastern songbirds (multi-species) (multiple species (Passeriformes))

FEIS says many birds nest or forage in white spruce. In one study it cites, dark-eyed juncos, yellow-rumped warblers and boreal chickadees together made up more than half of the birds in white spruce forest, and in interior Alaska sharp-shinned hawks nest in it. FEIS also records spruce grouse eating the needles in late fall and winter, and snowshoe hares browsing young trees.

For people

Not eaten by humans

Not a food plant. Silvics of North America says the wood is used mainly for pulp and construction lumber, with lesser uses for house logs, musical instruments and paddles, and says it was the most important tree to the native peoples of interior Alaska, who used the bark to cover summer dwellings, the roots to lash birchbark baskets and canoes, the boughs for bedding, and the pitch and boiled needles as medicine. It is also planted as an ornamental, in shelterbelts and for Christmas trees. Plants For A Future lists the young shoot tips for tea and the inner bark and gum as edible, but no authoritative source here confirms that and no toxicity authority covers the species, so this record does not treat any part as food.

Native range

Native across 12 US states + 13 CA provinces.

Native ecoregions

Naturally belongs in 20 ecoregions - its native range crosses a state or province each one spans (not necessarily this exact habitat).

Blue Mountains forests

Canadian Aspen forests and parklands

Central Pacific Northwest coastal forests

Central Tallgrass prairie

Colorado Rockies forests

Eastern Canadian Forest-Boreal transition

Eastern Great Lakes lowland forests

Gulf of St. Lawrence lowland forests

North Cascades conifer forests

A tough, widely adaptable native shade tree of central and northeastern North America, growing 40 to 60 feet tall and wide with a rounded, spreading crown. Mature gray bark develops the warty corky ridges that make it instantly recognizable, and the round purple drupes are edible and feed dozens of bird species. One of the most pollution- and stress-tolerant street and shade trees available - it shrugs off wind, urban conditions, and wet, dry, or poor soils alike.

Climate notes

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NC State Extension, the Missouri Botanical Garden and Plants For A Future all list Picea glauca for USDA hardiness zones 2 to 6 (2a-6b), and the Missouri Botanical Garden advises against growing it in the eastern United States south of zone 6. Silvics of North America records winter and summer extremes of -65°F and 93°F in one part of its range, and up to 109°F in Manitoba; it says the southern edge of the belt where white spruce makes up most of the forest roughly follows the 64°F July average. NC State says it grows in cool climates and cannot tolerate hot, humid summers.

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The native range here is taken from Kew's World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP), the dataset POWO publishes: across Canada from Newfoundland, Labrador, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick west through Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta to British Columbia, the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, and in the United States in Alaska, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. WCVP accepts it under the name Picea laxa (Münchh.) Sarg., and NC State Extension files it under that name too; Flora of North America, Silvics and FEIS use Picea glauca, which this catalog keeps. WCVP records it as introduced in Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Austria and the Baltic states, and Plants For A Future notes that it is planted for timber in northern Europe.

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Flora of North America gives its habitat as muskegs, bogs and river banks up to mountain slopes, from sea level to 3,281 feet; Silvics puts the upper limit at about 4,987 feet. Flora of North America's list leaves out Idaho, which WCVP and the Wildflower Center include. The Wildflower Center's state list, which records where the plant grows rather than only where it is native, also includes Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Maryland, which neither WCVP nor Flora of North America lists as native, so the state list here leaves them out.

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Flora of North America says white spruce and Engelmann spruce hybridize and blend completely where they meet, which is why it treats Picea glauca broadly, including the Alberta and Porsild forms once named as varieties. FEIS adds hybrids with Sitka spruce (Lutz spruce) in Alaska and northwestern British Columbia and, less often, with black spruce. It is the provincial tree of Manitoba.

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Sources differ on light, moisture and soil. Silvics rates it intermediate in shade tolerance, NC State lists full sun to partial shade, and Plants For A Future says it cannot grow in shade; this record uses full sun to part shade. NC State tags it drought tolerant, Plants For A Future says it likes abundant moisture at the roots, and Silvics says it tolerates a wide range of moisture but not stagnant water; this record uses moderate moisture. Silvics says it grows on acid and alkaline soils, while Plants For A Future gives mildly acid to neutral, so no soil pH is set here. NC State calls it an excellent Christmas tree; Plants For A Future says it is unsuited because its needles soon fall.

Plant this, not that

Better fit for this place

For Chicago, IL, these are replacement suggestions: similar plants with a stronger hardiness fit now and/or in 2050.

Celtis occidentalis

Common hackberry

The most widely distributed deciduous tree in eastern North America and one of the few that thrives across a 7,000-foot elevation range from Newfoundland to Florida. Earliest spring bloom of any eastern hardwood (January-March in NC) gives early-emerging bees their first nectar source; brilliant red fall color is the species's headline, but the timing varies tree-to-tree - making cultivars with named selections ('October Glory', 'Red Sunset') the reliable design choice for guaranteed display.

Better fit now and in 2050

Now: well-suited

2050: well-suited

Acer rubrum

Red maple

The largest native cherry of eastern North America - a medium-to-large deciduous shade tree that hangs elongated racemes of small white flowers in spring, then ripens drooping strings of pea-sized fruit from red to near-black in late summer. The fragrant white bloom feeds bees while the fruit is eaten by 33 species of birds and many mammals; it is also a workhorse larval host, supporting the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail and a string of giant silk and sphinx moths. Every part except the ripe fruit is cyanide-bearing and toxic.

Better fit now and in 2050

Now: well-suited

2050: well-suited

Prunus serotina

Black cherry

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

Better fit now and in 2050

Now: well-suited

2050: well-suited

Ostrya virginiana

American hophornbeam

A small-to-medium understory tree of dry, rocky eastern-North-American woods, named for its drooping clusters of papery, sac-like seed pods that resemble the fruit of hops. The birch-like, sharply-serrated leaves turn an undistinguished yellow in fall, and reddish-brown male catkins persist on the bare branches through winter. Also called ironwood for its extremely hard, dense wood; tough, low-maintenance, and drought-tolerant once established.

A dense, conical-to-narrow-pyramidal evergreen tree native to eastern and central North America, prized as a screening and foundation conifer. Flat, fan-like sprays of scale-like, aromatic yellow-green foliage clothe the tree from the ground up, and red-brown bark exfoliates on mature trunks. Wild trees can reach 40 to 60 feet but cultivated plants typically stay near 20 to 30 feet; small urn-shaped cones and dense evergreen cover make it valuable food and shelter for birds.

Better fit now and in 2050

Now: well-suited

2050: well-suited

Similar plants

Browse lateral options with similar roles, light needs, size, or native-range overlap; these are not filtered for a better climate fit.

Thuja occidentalis

American arborvitae

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

A medium-to-large native shade tree of central and eastern North America, reaching 50 to 80 feet with an ovate-rounded crown and large, asymmetric heart-shaped leaves. In June it carries pale-yellow, intensely fragrant flowers on pendulous cymes - each cluster hung from a distinctive strap-like leafy bract - that ripen into pea-sized nutlets. The fragrant June bloom is a premier nectar source: Missouri Botanical Garden lists it as attracting bees and butterflies, and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center flags it as having special value to both native and honey bees.

Full sun / Part sun / Part shade

The native beech of eastern North America, from Nova Scotia and southern Ontario south to northern Florida and eastern Texas: a large, slow-growing, long-lived forest tree with smooth, light grey bark, a dense crown, golden-bronze fall colour and small, sweet, three-sided beechnuts that feed a long list of wildlife. Check its health in your area before planting. Wikipedia reports that beech bark disease has become a major killer of beech in the northeastern US, and that beech leaf disease, caused by a nematode, was found in Ohio in 2012 and had spread as far south as Virginia by 2022, severely damaging American beech. Its shallow roots and dense shade also leave little room for anything beneath it.

A small-to-medium understory tree of dry, rocky eastern-North-American woods, named for its drooping clusters of papery, sac-like seed pods that resemble the fruit of hops. The birch-like, sharply-serrated leaves turn an undistinguished yellow in fall, and reddish-brown male catkins persist on the bare branches through winter. Also called ironwood for its extremely hard, dense wood; tough, low-maintenance, and drought-tolerant once established.

A small native deciduous tree (or thicket-forming, suckering shrub) of eastern and central North America, grown for clouds of fragrant white 5-petaled flowers that open in March before the leaves and for the edible red plums that follow in early summer. It forms a broad, spreading crown with attractive dark reddish-brown twigs that sometimes carry thorny lateral branchlets. A documented larval host for swallowtails and other butterflies, with flowers of special value to native, bumble, and honey bees.

A massive native deciduous canopy tree of eastern North American floodplain forests producing distinctive mottled white-tan-gray exfoliating bark (the design-defining trait - sycamore bark looks like military camouflage), large palmate maple-like leaves, and persistent spherical seed balls. Among the largest deciduous trees in eastern North America - old-growth specimens exceed 150 feet tall + 10 feet trunk diameter. Site only where massive scale is acceptable.

Platanus occidentalis

American sycamore