- Evergreen conifer, dwarf, initially globose, but it eventually will form a leader and become a broad cone with age. Foliage is bright silver-blue which develops best in full sun. Its growth rate is 3-6 inches (7.5-15 cm) per year and in 10 years may reach a height of about 4.5 ft high and 3 ft wide (1.4 × 0.9 m), thereafter reaching an optimum size of 8 ft × 6 ft (2.4 × 1.3 m) for the average garden.
- Full sun, with regular watering in dry summer areas
- Hardy to USDA Zone 2 (some say 3) According to Krüssmann (1985) the plant was developed by the Eastern Nursery before 1934 and named Picea pungens glauca compacta globose. It was obtained by Col. R.H. Montgomery for his estate in Cos Cob, Connecticut and in 1945 he donated it along with about 200 conifers to the New York Botanical Garden. Apparently the plant was given the cultivar name ‘R.H. Montgomery' by the Garden in 1949; subsequently the name has often been shortened by the nursery trade to ‘Montgomery’. This cultivar apparently is virtually indistinguishable from P.p. 'Globosa', i.e., 'Glaulca Globosa' (see below).
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The following is from the Coenosium Gardens website (2010): "Whether or not a nursery is actually growing 'Glauca Globosa' or 'R.H. Montgomery' is a moot point since for all intents and purposes there is no difference to the consumer. Propagation of terminals will tend to produce 'R.H. Montgomery' while laterals will tend to produce 'Glanca Globosa'. Enhance the desired effect with careful pruning and the nursery has whichever form it wants ("Poppycock!" says the conifer taxonomist.) The taxonomist is bound "to get bent out of shape" over such a statement, but the nurseryman has to take a more "practical" attitude. There evidently is a 'Glauca Globosa' in a collection somewhere, but the nurseryman wants a cultivariant under this name, not necessarily the actual plant. Those of us "in the know" must consider any 'Glauca Globosa' as a cultivariant unless the plant can be certified as possessing some characteristic other than growth habit or foliage that distinguishes it from 'R.H. Montgomery', and that characteristic has to be traceable back to the oldest labeled 'Glauca Globosa' that can be located."
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plant habit, globose stage
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branchlets
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needles
