Picea pungens 'Glauca Compacta' / blue compact Colorado spruce

Picea pungens 'Glauca Compacta' is a dwarf, irregularly globose selection of Colorado spruce with dense symmetrical branching and grayish blue foliage. After 10 years of growth, a mature specimen will measure 3 feet (1 m) tall and wide, an annual growth rate of 3 to 5 inches (7.5 - 12.5 cm).

This is a cultivar that has been in circulation since the early 1900s. Since the mid-1800s, Arie Koster, a nurseryman from Boskoop, The Netherlands produced and sold various blue grafted and seedling Colorado spruce. In 1913, J.H. van Nes of C.B. van Nes & Son (Blaauw & Co.) purchased 10 of Koster's plants, selected one of them and named it 'Glauca Compacta'.
Picea pungens 'Glauca Compacta' at Bickelhaupt Arboretum, Clinton, Iowa, in the Heartland Collection of Garden Conifers; photo from March 2004.
Photo by Dax Herbst
Picea pungens 'Glauca Compacta' — a specimen planted over 50 years ago at the Bartlett Arboretum in Stamford, Connecticut; photo from 2020.
Photo by Katherine Wagner-Reiss

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