BEAUTIFUL NORWAY SPRUCES

      Four stately, fifty-year-old Norway spruce trees border our suburban lawn in New Holland, Pennsylvania.  Although eastern hemlocks and white pines are native to North America and have lovely qualities, my favorite planted coniferous trees are Norway spruces because they have several beauties, and are tough.

     Hemlocks currently suffer from wooly adelgids that slowly kill those pretty trees.  And white pines snap off easily in strong winds.  But the handsome Norway spruces have neither of those problems, or any others that I have noticed.  Therefore, they are good trees to plant on lawns, even though they are not native to North America.   

     Norway spruces have several beauties.  Their needled limbs gracefully sweep down, out, and up at the tips, looking like half ovals.  Year around, one can hear wind sighing peacefully through their swaying boughs.  And one can smell their wonderful scent in the air.  In winter, snow piles on the needled branches and beige cones hang from the tips of those limbs.  And whether silhouetted at night or bathed in sunlight under blue skies, spruce shapes are magnificent.

     Norway spruces are also lovely in May.  Their limbs are still needled, of course, and cones still dangle from the ends of the boughs.  But now the lighter green of new, soft needles at branch tips contrast pleasingly with older, darker needles.  Numerous red, dangling female flowers, that are shaped like the cones they will become, and many beige male blooms add more beauty to those trees in May.

     Several kinds of wildlife live at least part of their lives in planted Norway spruce trees, including in our neighborhood.  I remember seeing about 20 mourning doves daily perching and dozing peacefully, between feeding forays, in the spruce trees in our neighborhood during some past winters, sometimes through beautiful snowfalls.  The lovely doves seemed unruffled by the snow and cold.     

     A few pairs of mourning doves raise young in those Norway spruces bordering our back yard, from early March to mid-September.  Each pair attempts to put out two young a month during the warm seasons.  We daily hear the gentle cooing of the doves through that period of time.  

     Each spring, into summer, a small colony of purple grackles and a pair of American robins raise young in the sheltering, neighborhood Norway spruces.  While nesting, the grackle colony dominates the bird life in our neighborhood.

     A few gray squirrels build dead-leaf nests among the needled boughs of those same local spruces.  There they live year-around, and there females give birth to their young.  

     I've seen red-tailed hawks, Cooper's hawks and great horned owls perched, at one time or another, in the sheltering, needled spruces in our neighborhood.  And we have heard a pair of owls hooting to each other on a number of occasions.  I hope some day to see a pair of at least one of those majestic species nesting in a neighborhood spruce.

     And I've repeatedly seen permanent resident Carolina chickadees, American goldfinches and house finches fluttering about those spruces.  And during some winters I've noticed a few red-breasted nuthatches and golden-crowned kinglets in those same needled boughs.  All these pretty, little birds make our back lawn all the more interesting the year around.

     Planted Norway spruces in North America are tough, stately and shelter a variety of adaptable wildlife.  They are good additions to any lawn.       

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