r/conifers

For those more familiar with firs in General

JWP. Arrived about 2 weeks ago. It seems fine sofar minus I noticed on the very main leader-top of this tree, there is like 5-6 needles that have tinge of brown . I cannot recall if it was there when I unboxed it.

I've been eyeballing it every day since observing the brown needles but sofar, all others parts of this tree appear healthy with no stress

Planted a Colorado blue spruce as a small 18 inch whip back in the spring of 2023, mostly because I wanted something that would eventually block the view of my neighbor's shed without turning into a giant mess like the arborvitae I inherited from the last owner. For the first two years it basically sat there. Maybe two or three inches of new growth each season, needles looking a little dull, and I kept second guessing whether I'd picked a bad spot.

This year something clicked. New candles came in thick and soft green in late spring, and by August I measured almost 14 inches of leader growth plus solid lateral branching. I didn't change much about my routine, just kept up with deep watering during dry stretches and stopped fussing with fertilizer after reading that young spruces mostly need to establish roots before they'll push top growth. Apparently that establishment period really is as slow and unglamorous as everyone says.

Soil here is heavy clay, so I amended the planting hole with some pine bark fines and grit when I put it in, which I think helped drainage more than anything else. No pest issues so far, knock on wood, though I do check the needles every few weeks for spider mites since I've heard blue spruce can be prone to them in drier climates.

Curious if others have seen this same pattern where a young conifer seems to stall out for a year or two and then suddenly takes off. Wondering if it's mostly a root establishment thing or if there's something else going on that I'm not accounting for.