Picea Pungens Hoopsii Colorado Spruce or Blue Spruce

Picea Pungens Hoopsii (Colorado Spruce) is an RHS AGM-winning evergreen spruce with beautiful blue-white foliage. It doesn’t grow too large and makes an excellent privacy screen or windbreak. 

Picea Pungens is the Colorado or Blue Spruce that grows wild in the Rocky Mountains of the USA. It’s found in Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming and Utah between 1,800 and 3,300 metres in elevation. The Hoopsie cultivar was bred by Hoops nursery, USA hence its name. It’s an upright conical spruce with horizontal branches covered in evergreen pale blue-white foliage. Hoopsie is one of the best spruces for blue colour but it does have prickly needles.

The branches are densely packed and it has a sweet pungent scent when its needles are rubbed. In autumn, fine cylindrical cones appear on branch tips turning yellow-brown as they ripen.
This is a tough but attractive conifer for year-round colour and an excellent privacy screen in low-maintenance wildlife-friendly gardens.  

Height And Spread of Picea Pungens Hoopsii
This spruce is a fairly small cultivar that reaches a maximum of two metres in height and 1.5 in width over 10 years

How Hardy Is Picea Pungens Hoopsii
Tough enough to gain the RHS H7 rating (their hardiest grade) Colorado Spruce Hoopsii can withstand the coldest winters with well-drained roots and it’s drought tolerant once established.

How To Use Picea Pungens Hoopsii
With its pale silvery-blue needles and upright stance striking Blue Spruce Hoopsii is a standout year-round specimen tree for a mixed border or an ornamental in the lawn.
It also creates an excellent windbreak due to its dense branches and forms a gently scented architectural privacy screen 12 months of the year.

How To Care For Picea Pungens Hoopsii
Blue Spruce Hoopsii is easy to grow and care for. It needs very little maintenance beyond water until it’s established.
Although it tolerates a little shade, this spruce does best in full sun in well-drained neutral or acidic soil including difficult sand or clay ground. It will tolerate both exposed and sheltered spots and doesn’t need pruning.
Apply a thick layer of acidic (pine, bracken or ericaceous) mulch around the roots in early spring for a boost of blue needle-enhancing nutrients. Mulch also traps moisture and keeps weed competition to a minimum.