Black Hills Spruce

Did you know that Black Hills Spruce trees have dark, dark brown bark and dark, dark green needles which are their leaves. From afar, it takes surprisingly few of any evergreen tree to appear black. It takes even fewer of the Black Hills Spruce trees together to make an apparently black forest. Yes, the Black Forest of Bavaria in Germany is named for it's evergreen trees. One-third of the Black Forest today is Spruce, and Pine trees are close behind at 30%. Evergreen trees are (for)ever green, but none is more deeply, darkly green than mountain area Spruce trees like the Black Hills Spruce. There are no species of European Spruce trees named for the Black Forest, but the Rocky Mountains' Spruce trees which have remained for millions of years in the Black Hills were named well. So, guess what percent of the trees covering the Black Hills are Black Hills Spruce trees? The Ponderosa Pine tree, also known as the Western Yellow Pine tree makes up over three quarters of the area's trees, 76%! Would you believe just 4% of the trees in the Black Hills are Black Hills Spruce Trees? Yeesh. Spruce trees are not just valuable as evergreen trees suitable for rich, year 'round, dark green color from their dense needle-leaves, and of course, for Christmastime. One of our customers worked at the Homestake Gold Mine after graduating from college. Left over from the 1876 Gold Rush to the Black Hills of South Dakota, where George Custer was supposed to chase away the prospectors bothering the Sioux Indians, but instead tried the opposite and got himself killed, the Homestake Gold mine is still operating today. The mine is a great tourist attraction, ranking right up there with Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Mountain, the indoor hot springs pool in the town of, well, Hot Springs. The Homestake Mine has produced more gold than any other mine in the entire western hemisphere, including the huge open-pit surface mines of Nevada. Guess what species of tree from the forest of the Black hills has been favored for the timber supports and structures down in the mine all these 120-odd years ? It was the aptly named Black Hills Spruce, because the Spruce wood is better able to stand up to being constantly bumped and being constantly wet (you wouldn't believe just how wet underground mines are our customer tells us) than the far more locally common Ponderosa Pine wood. How about that? If you want to mine your property with an underground operation, you'll be able to cut down your mature Spruce trees in just 30 years after you plant the seedlings you bought from SeedlingsRus, or maybe just half that time, 15 years, if you get 6-foot saplings. You can see other articles by bill at the following links: http://seedlingsrus.com/Soils http://seedlingsrus.com/PlantingTips.html http://www.zone5trees.com/GrowingGrasses.html http://zone5trees.com/PlantingInstructions.html http://seedlingsrus.com/TransplantShock http://www.zone5trees.com/Hedges.html