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Health & Fitness

Big Trees of Alpharetta: The Downtown Spruce Tree

One of Alpharetta's most beloved trees is the Norway spruce at Main Street and Milton Avenue.

There is a little pocket park in downtown Alpharetta at the corner of Highway 9, or South Main Street, and Milton Avenue.  This park is diagonal to the present day City Hall.  At this park there grows a spruce tree that sits patiently evergreen throughout the year but that is lit and celebrated each December as the official Christmas tree of Alpharetta.  The Alpharetta Christmas tree lighting has gone on for 35 years now.  Has it always been this specific spruce tree that's been lit?  I couldn't tell you.  I'll need someone more knowledgeable than me to answer that question.  But, ever since I've lived here it is this spruce tree that glows with lights each December.  

Some has mistakenly claimed that our famous Christmas tree is a blue spruce. This is incorrect. A blue spruce, Picea pungens, actually has a blue-ish color.  You might see one around but it's not native to our area, nor does it necessarily thrive here, being the state tree of an entirely different climate - Utah.  

The Alpharetta spruce tree is a Norway spruce, Picea abies, also not from around here.  It is native to Europe and thrives in moist, cool climates, but like so many trees we enjoy, seems to do good enough in some parts of metropolitan Atlanta, though I would not recommend you go out and buy one.  

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I am a bit sentimental about this particular species as I had one in my yard in Tennessee.  I loved the pendulous branches and the pyramidal form that seemed to mark my yard as something special.  In fact, what was special about my yard was simply this tree. 

The much trampled and hot and heat reflective environment in which our favorite Norway spruce grows in downtown Alpharetta is probably not ideal.  Indeed, due to these circumstances it is likely to succumb to some pathogen or insect in the near future due to stress.  But, I did want to celebrate it here today - at a non-holiday occasion, just for being one of our special trees.  

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