Plant of the Month - December, 2007

ARBORETUM PLANT OF THE MONTH FEATURE

by Francie Hill
Director, Bickelhaupt Arboretum

Picea glauca
(Mac Gold)
White Spruce

Searching for the perfect Christmas tree has been the subject of plays, movies, novels and songs through the years. I found the solution right in the Heartland Collection of Dwarf Conifers at the Arboretum: Picea glauca (Mac Gold). This White Spruce is a seedling which was planted in 1996. This tree would make the perfect Christmas tree!

It is so clearly a pyramid in shape and one of the densest trees in the collection - What more could one want for this special holiday! My choice for Plant of the Month is located at the west end of the Heartland Collection of Garden Conifers, the featured group of more than 500 labeled conifers which was designed and developed by Justin "Chub" Harper in the early 1990's.

Mac Gold is planted in bed QQ among Hemlock, Fir and Pine with an Arborvitae and Larch very close by. Picea pungens ÔIseli FoxtailÕ is directly next to Mac Gold which only further emphasizes the density of my choice. The American Conifer Society lists the genealogy of this perfectly shaped tree as "Introduced in 1985 by Joe Stupka of Pulaski, PA who discovered and named this tree which he found growing in a Christmas Tree farm. The entire tree was dug and moved to Pine Glenn Nursery, near Pulaski, PA and it grew there until it was killed by construction in 1992." Since it grows about 6 - 12 inches a year, if I had it as a tree in my yard, I could decorate it with colored lights for several years before I would have to bring out the ladder.

Michael Dirr comments that "Picea glauca inspires little emotion with its needle color." This seedling is the exception ! What a surprise last spring when I first noticed this seedling Mac Gold. It had such a bright yellow and gold needle color. With the placement at the base of the collection, it is an eye-catching conifer in the Heartland collection from anywhere in the collection and from the bridge.

And for those of you who are worried, I am content to imagine Mac Gold as my own Christmas tree, knowing the pleasure I will have seeing it in the Heartland Collection in its spring glory!

About the author: Francie Hill is the Executive Director of the Bickelhaupt Arboretum. Hill, also president of the Board of Directors, returned to Clinton seven years ago to direct the fourteen acre outdoor museum and foundation founded by her parents more than 35 years ago. As a child, Hill played on the grounds of the arboretum which was a farm owned by her family. This land had been purchased during the Great Depression as a place to take livestock in trade on cars and trucks. Refer to the arboretum's web site for photographs taken pre-Arboretum.