can anyone please confirm for me if this is a black spruce?i have searched all over and this seems to be a black spruce..if so...i want to collect the seeds from cones and plant them with my children...whats best method...refrigerate over winter then sow in summer?..thanks for your help
Can no do . . . it's a White Spruce (Picea glauca). Black Spruce has shorter, harder cones with small, stiff scales. Pic for comparison: http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/potd/2005/12/picea_mariana.php To grow the seeds, take the freshly mature cones (you may already be a bit too late, those cones look like they have already shed most or all of their seeds), shake the seeds out, and store over winter refrigerated in slightly damp sterilised sand at +1 or +2°C. Then sow in spring (early spring in pots indoors, or later spring outdoors when the risk of frost is over).
