We bought our house in July 2025. No idea how old the spruce is, but it looked unwell when we bought the house and it's slowly but steadily looked worse and worse since. Our major point of concern is that the spruce is leaning towards the house and driveway. Should we have an arborist come out and take a look at it?
by madishartte
11 Comments
There are a lot of dead twigs in that tree. Overall it looks very thin, and what needles are there are poorly colored. I’m not sure it’s worth the money to have it diagnosed, because it can’t be saved. And I say that as a person who’s whole business is going out to make diagnoses. Put that money toward a replacement tree when you remove this one.
No it doesn’t, but wait until summer because it’s clearly still alive. I would expect if it loses all of its needles, it won’t get them back.
Can’t tell why from a photo, it could be too many things causing it.
No, it doesn’t look ok. Looks like a classic case of needle cast disease and it looks fairly progressive. It can be treated to help it along but from my experience this is what a blue spruce looks like before it checks out.
Nope
Of course it’d take lab testing to confirm but I’m confident saying it’s likely needle cast.
Yeah a goner, what kind of tree would you replace it with? There are tons of options for other conifers and even broadleaf evergreens that are native to oregon (Im assuming you are in oregon based on liscence and other plants in picture),
Not likely needlecast or insect.
Looks like classic root issues and water stress.
Tree is having trouble supporting random parts of foliage. It will let whatever it can’t support die off.
Good chance it might stay funky looking for a long time.
There is a chance you can help it stay alive for a while. Hire a plant health care arborist
Cut it down ! Cut it up for fire wood and haul it off. Pretty rough shape !
All that paving has done the tree no favors. Best to remove it before it falls on your house.
Blue spruce problems are .443887% of all posts on the tree subs. Remove and replace with a more suitable tree.
