About Abies lasiocarpa ‘Stampede Pass’: Mike & Cheryl found this cute subalpine fir broom, while picking huckleberries in the Stampede Pass area of the Cascade Mountain range of Washington in August 2018. The Abies lasiocarpa tree was struggling and the only healthy looking part was the fir broom. It was oblong with a dense growth pattern, measuring 16x13x10 inches in dimension. The annual growth on this cultivar is less than 1/2 inch and the needles are tiny and bluish green. We took a few scions as an experiment in the fall of 2018 and they pushed beautifully, and some even had a second push! Since the tree is struggling, we took the broom in November 2019 (not accessible after snowfall), and named it Abies lasiocarpa ‘Stampede Pass’!

Remarkably, the new buds are shades of purple, similar to the huckleberries, in the patch where it was discovered! Maybe the name ‘Huckleberry’ would have been more fitting!

Abies amabilis ‘White Pass’ is a columnar growing Pacific silver fir broom found up in the White Pass area in the Cascade Mountain Range of Washington on Labor Day weekend in 2018. We used our snow-shoes to access and harvest the broom in January 2019. The upright growing broom was dense and measured about 4 by 2 feet in dimension. This new Abies amabilis cultivar grafted well with nearly 100% take! Surprisingly, the new cultivars so far have a horizontal growth pattern. Time will tell if the growth pattern becomes more vertical like the broom!

We were up in the Mt Hood region with our goal to obtain a piece of Abies procera ‘Mt Hood Summit’ but the weather was not cooperating, with rain and high winds! After several unsuccessful attempts to retrieve some scions, we decided to travel the side roads while waiting for the weather to settle down, and found 2 new brooms! An Abies amabilis ‘Sweet 16’, and this cute Abies procera ‘Anew Blue’! Cheryl was excited because competitive Mike missed it, and she found it! Truly a rarity in more ways than one!

This Abies amabilis ‘Pacific Crest’ is a Pacific silver fir broom that was discovered on Stampede Pass near the Pacific Crest Trail. We harvested it in early March 2018 during a snow storm. We were able to access the location by snow mobile and later learned that there were avalanches and warnings which explains why there were no other snow mobiles on the trail! ‘Pacific Crest’ is an exciting new cultivar! Not only is it beautiful and vigorous, but also there are very few Abies amabilis (Pacific silver fir) cultivars in existence, and the 2 notable cultivars (‘Compacta’ & ‘Spreading Star’) described on the American Conifer Society website originated as seedlings rather than brooms!

Abies procera ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ is a new cultivar of a Noble fir broom. It was found by Mike & Cheryl Davison at White Pass in the Cascade Mountain range. Others have said that this cultivar rivals Abies procera ‘Blaue Hexe’ because of its beauty, vigorous nature, and it is more easily propagated. It is a vibrant powdery blue color with dense foliage, and vigorous budding along the length of the scions.

Most of the well known Noble fir cultivars in the industry arise from seedlings discovered in Christmas tree farms whereas the origin of this cultivar is from a bud mutation which formed a broom.

We snowshoed in uphill nearly 2 miles to retrieve the broom in February 2018, and the downhill trip back was much more enjoyable! We also retrieved more scions from a colorful Doug fir specimen, Pseudotsuga menziesii ‘Harlequin’ on the same trail on the same trip. ‘Harlequin’ was also grafted successfully in the fall of 2017!