Blue Spruce Shrubs

USDA Zones 2 and 3

• Glauca Globosa is the blue spruce shrub with the most tolerance for cold, growing into zone 2. A dwarf shrub with a globe shape, it grows between 3 and 5 feet high, but 4 to 6 feet wide. Glauca Globosa is an option for hedges or rock gardens. Blue Pearl is another cold-tolerant version of blue spruce. It grows to 5 feet high and wide, with a round shape that eventually may become more conical over time. Blue Pearl handles clay soil and is able to survive droughts once fully established in a site.

USDA Zone 4

• Accent a USDA zone 4 landscape with Colonial Gold, a blue spruce shrub cultivar between 4 and 15 feet high. It has blue-green needles, but with a yellow tint, especially on any new growth, states the Missouri Botanical Garden. Colonial Gold grows slowly, averaging just 4 feet high over its initial decade. It takes up to 8 years for Montgomery, another slow-growing blue spruce cultivar, to achieve its modest height of 3 feet. This shrub has silver-blue needles and it will grow tall unless you prune it. Montgomery is a good choice for foundation plantings.

USDA Zones 5 and 6

• The Corbet cultivar takes on a pyramidal shape when fully mature, but requires many years to grow to its limit -- about 8 feet high. Corbet is suitable for USDA zones 5 and 6, where it works well in small gardens and as a specimen shrub. Corbet's foliage is a shade of silvery-blue. Zones 5 and 6 are also appropriate venues for Fat Albert, a blue spruce that grows at the rate of 12 inches each year until it is about 15 feet tall. Create borders on your acreage with Fat Albert, taking advantage of its dense branching habit and its blue-green needles. Fat Albert is wide and round when young, but becomes upright and cone-shaped with age.

USDA Zone 7

• The stiff, horizontal branches of Glauca Prostrata spread out as much as 10 feet, but this blue spruce variety is just 12 to 24 inches high. Use it as ground cover in USDA zone 7. Spice up your rock garden with this shrub's blue-green colors. Thume, another blue spruce cultivar, has powder blue needles that add unusual color to a zone 7 landscape. Thume eventually grows to 8 feet high, but in its first 10 to 15 years, this shrub reaches a height of just 4 feet.