Over the weekend I went looking for a dwarf Blue Atlas Cedar/Cedrus atlantica 'Horstmann.' After reading Peter The Outlaw Gardener's recent post
here about
Alpine Nursery and its excellent selection of conifers, I decided to give it a try on Saturday afternoon. I looked it up on Google maps before we set off, but I still didn't realize just how far out in Puyallup it was. And of course I didn't count on having to drive down Meridian Street in Puyallup, which, being a major franchise alley, is a mess of traffic most days but even worse on Saturdays. We crawled along amongst the Saturday afternoon shoppers and errand-runners. And of course, it was raining. In fact, it had been briefly snowing earlier in the day, but it changed to rain when the temps rose.
Anyway, we finally arrived at the deserted nursery. No one else apparently was on a mission like I was. I set off from the car and had barely set foot into the nursery when a man came out into the rain and cold to ask if he could help. I told him my mission and he showed me a couple of small specimens, which were really too small for me, unfortunately. One had a nice form, but looked sort of Bonsai-ish, sitting in a hypertufa trough. So he very kindly told me that his friend who owns
Vassey Nursery had exactly what I was looking for, since he had been there recently and seen that they had a couple of very lovely Blue Atlas Cedars about 3-4 feet high. He made a call and told them I was coming and to pull their best one and hold it for me. I wish I knew the name of the man at Alpine who helped me out, but I'm assuming he was the owner. I'll definitely be going back when the weather is nicer to check out what else he has for sale. That's only fair.
I wish I had thought to check Vassey first, since it's actually much closer to our house than Alpine. Anyway, we set off for Vassey and when we got there, found the most perfect specimen waiting for us. In no time, we had it paid for ($74.99 for the curious amongst you) and loaded into the car.
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| What a beauty! |
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| I just love those clusters of blue needles |
On Sunday I couldn't resist going out to plant it, despite frigid temps. I put it in the front bed next to my Pinus sylvestris 'Nisbet's Gold,' a lovely Scotch pine that turns yellow in winter and greens up in summer sun. Not right next to it, of course. I've allowed room for both of them to reach their mature size in 10 years or so -- 6 ft. by 3 ft. for the pine and 8 ft. by 3 ft. for the cedar. Hopefully the info on the tags is correct. They're about 6 1/2 feet apart, measuring from trunk to trunk.
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| Pinus sylvestris 'Nisbet's Gold' |
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| The long golden needles will make a nice contrast with the cedar's clusters of short blue needles |
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| Right to left: Blue Atlas Cedar, 'Nisbet's Gold' pine, 'Sunlight Lace' Hinoki cypress, and far beyond them and out of focus, Abies koreana 'Silberlocke' and against the sky still waiting to leaf out, Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy' |
It was so cold when I finished that my hands were aching and red, but I still had to capture that lineup in a picture.
