I am considering growing bacheri spruce to serve as a fence line in Western Washington.Does anyone have experience with growing bacheri spruce and are their inherent problems with growing the tree in Western Washington?.
Blue Colorado spruce are quite slow and pest prone here. You may have little trouble or you may end up with them being spoiled by bugs at some point. Maybe better to try Juniperus scopulorum 'Moonglow' instead, very common at outlets these days and much less expensive than grafted, named cultivars of Colorado spruce. You can even find acceptable looking stock of the juniper at big box plant departments around here at this time, for quite low prices. The juniper does have the problem of the older, interior leaves losing the powdery look with age and becoming dingy, but just about all highly glaucous (bloomy) conifer cultivars do this here, including those of Colorado spruce. Unlike the spruce, it doesn't have aphids come and suck out all the needles except those on the tips, making the tree look like a shaved poodle.
