Northern Minnesota Nursery states on their website: The winter of 2002-2003, the acid test for exotics Mike Laine, Northern Minnesota Nursery, Floodwood , MN Located in northern Minnesota , west of Duluth Well there is always something good that comes out of bad situations. It was hard to find anything good after seeing a field of orange trees. My seed bill has been getting larger every year trying out the different trees, but now there are some trees that I just won't have to bother with anymore. Here is a list of trees that we had planted and how they fared. Bornmueller Fir: Grafts I did with Bob Girardin's trees didn't survive and 1-0 seedlings died. Canaan Fir : This tree did the poorest 3-0 seedlings were nearly all wiped out. Transplants had a lot of aborted buds. May do better once it gets larger. Concolor Fir : Had a lot of winterburn but some survived. Tree needs well-drained soil. Fraser Fir : Larger trees did better than young ones. Korean Fir : Did very well. Had trees from 1 year to 6 years old that had very little winter damage. I have trees in pots now that are as green as any tree. Needs fertilizer or it will be yellow. Nikko Fir : Grafts had damaged buds. New growth was small. It did survive though. Expensive seed. Kingham Fir Plugs I had planted did very well – no burn at all. Tree has needles that are sharp maybe detriment for Christmas tree. But if people buy Blue Spruce they will love this tree. Nordmann Fir : I am giving up on this tree. It was winter burned in November. Nova Scotia Balsam Fir : Tree did ok. Sheet Harbor Phanerolepsis Fir : Like the Canaan fir this tree did not do so well, but it was better than the Canaan fir. Elevation does make a difference in hardiness. Siberian Fir : Did great, no damage. Veitch fir : This tree did all right, not as good as the Korean fir. Grafts came through without any damage. Veitch x Balsam Fir : survived. Korean x Balsam Fir : did well. These will be interesting to see how they look when they are bigger. 4886 eastern Balsam Fir from Bill Sayward at Itasca Greenhouse had no damage at all. Meyer Spruce : This tree did the best of all the trees. No damage whatsoever. If we can get it to grow a little faster when it is small it will be great. I have a tree near me that has grown over a foot a year the last 3 years and is as blue as any Blue Spruce. Blue Cook Balsam Fir : it did the best of the Balsams. I would like to add that this winter was very unusual and this situation may not happen again for many years. We also lost a lot of Blue Spruce and the native balsams also had winter injury. One last thing – deer like all fir trees.