# How fast native trees grow: a year's growth by species, soil and sun

> How many feet a year native trees grow, how soil, sun, weeds and deer speed or slow them, why fast-growing trees die younger, and how to read growth off a twig.

Published 2026-09-28. Tags: Growth & age, What to plant. By Blue Whale Trees, a native tree nursery in the United States. Web version: https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/how-fast-native-trees-grow/

A slow native tree grows a foot or less taller each year while it is young, a medium one 1 to 2 feet, and a fast one 2 feet or more. These rates hold for a young tree in full sun on decent ground, once its roots settle in. Within one species the spread can be wider than between classes. American holly, a slow grower, made 6 feet in 16 years under medium shade, but hollies mowed, mulched and fertilized for nine years averaged 22 feet at 10 years old. On an average site our growth estimator puts a 3-foot black gum at about 13 feet ten years later, a [Washington hawthorn](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/washington-hawthorn/index.html.md) at 16 and a black walnut at 30.

![Trail through a grove of dark green American holly saplings under tall bare hardwoods in late winter](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/articles/how-fast-native-trees-grow-1-1000.jpg?v=c8c860cd "American holly saplings under tall hardwoods beside the Cross County Trail in Oakton, Fairfax County, Virginia, on February 8, 2016. Under medium shade, holly has grown 6 feet in 16 years.")
*Photo: Famartin, [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A2016-02-08_12_15_06_View_north_through_a_grove_of_American_Holly_saplings_along_the_Gerry_Connolly_Cross_County_Trail_between_Miller_Heights_Road_and_Vale_Road_in_Oakton%2C_Fairfax_County%2C_Virginia.jpg))*

## What a growth rate measures, and what it leaves out

A growth rate is the height a young tree adds to its leader in one year. Our growth estimator sorts species into three classes by it: 12 inches or less a year is slow, 12 to 24 inches medium, and 24 inches or more fast. The estimator models the three at 1, 1.5 and 2.75 feet a year on an average site.

Rating lists disagree because a rate depends on where the trees were measured. The Missouri Department of Conservation rates hawthorns slow and black walnut medium, while our growth estimator puts Washington hawthorn in the medium class and black walnut in the fast one. For [overcup oak](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/overcup-oak/index.html.md), the rating and its warning come in one sentence:

> "Growth of seedlings is rated as average but varies greatly with site, soil, and the kind and degree of competition" (USDA Forest Service, Silvics of North America, *Overcup Oak*)

A rate also leaves out three things a planter needs:

- **The first years.** A planted tree grows roots first, so its first year or two fall short of any rate.
- **The slowdown.** Height growth slows as a tree nears its mature height. [Flowering dogwood](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/flowering-dogwood/index.html.md) grows fairly fast for 20 to 30 years and then almost stops.
- **The trunk.** A trunk keeps thickening long after the height slows.

## The first years after planting

A tree lifted from a nursery bed spends its first year or two growing roots while the top waits. A new Washington hawthorn may add little in its first year while it roots. [Pawpaw](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/pawpaw/index.html.md) starts slowly for two years, and then its growth picks up.

Seedlings keep the same order from the start. Three-year-old shagbark hickory seedlings in the Ohio Valley had taproots about 2.6 feet long and tops under 8 inches tall. [American basswood](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/american-basswood/index.html.md) seedlings made 2.2 inches of stem in their first year and stood 3.7 inches after their second. [American persimmon](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/american-persimmon/index.html.md) seedlings stand about 8 inches after their first year, over a strong taproot.

[Longleaf pine](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/longleaf-pine/index.html.md) takes the habit furthest. Its seedlings spend 2 to 15 years as a tuft of needles at ground level while the roots grow.

![Longleaf pine seedling in its grass stage, a round tuft of long green needles around a bud at ground level](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/articles/how-fast-native-trees-grow-2-1000.jpg?v=9a09632e "A longleaf pine in its grass stage at Village Creek State Park, Texas, on March 30, 2024. Seedlings stay at ground level for 2 to 15 years while their roots grow.")
*Photo: Larry D. Moore, [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ALongleaf_Pine_Grass_Village_Creek_SP_Texas_2024.jpg))*

A big transplant loses most of its roots to the spade and takes longer still, which is why [a small sapling often catches up with a big one](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/small-sapling-or-big-transplant/index.html.md).

## What speeds a tree up or holds it back

Five conditions move a young tree up or down its class, and each has been measured.

### Soil and water

Five-year-old black locust plantations grew 1.1 feet a year on badly eroded ground and 2.6 feet where little soil had washed away. Black walnut, which does best on deep, moist, well-drained soil, averaged 13 inches a year for its first 10 to 12 years on strip-mine spoil in Kansas. Our estimator scales the average rate by 0.65 for a poor site and by 1.3 for a good one. Poor means compacted, shallow, dry or shaded. Good means deep, moist, fertile and open.

### Sun

Shade slows even the trees built to survive it. A [striped maple](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/striped-maple/index.html.md) held under a forest canopy may add a foot in ten years, while one released into good light has grown over 3 feet a year. Common hackberry may add barely an inch a year under a dense canopy.

### Grass and weeds

Grass and weeds over the roots hold a young tree back for years. Bald cypress planted in a yard that was weeded and watered averaged 12 feet tall three years later. On a Florida site where weeds grew thick, bald cypress gained 12 inches in five years. In an Indiana trial, black walnuts given three years of weed control stood 39 inches taller at 10 years than those given two. Keep [a ring of mulch where the grass was](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/care-calendar-for-a-new-tree/index.html.md).

### Seed source

In southern Illinois, black walnut from Mississippi and Texas seed kept growing in height for 134 days a year, against 93 for walnut from northern Illinois and Iowa. The southern trees grew fastest. Seed carried too far north meets frost it is not built for, so [how far seed can travel](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/seed-source-and-provenance/index.html.md) has limits. Blue Whale Trees grows its trees from seed, and local conditions and seed source shift the height a tree reaches.

### Deer

Deer browse to about 5 feet and can hold a young tree at hedge height for years. In a Connecticut trial they browsed 92 percent of the unprotected black walnut seedlings, and the walnuts lost ground:

> "Unprotected black walnut seedlings were actually shorter after 3 yr than when planted because of browsing." (Ward and Stephens, *Protection of tree seedlings from deer browsing*, 1995)

Seedlings in tree shelters grew tallest, and the hardwoods gained the most. A tube or cage keeps deer off until the leader is out of reach, and [protecting trees from animals](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/protecting-trees-from-animals/index.html.md) gives the sizes.

## Measured growth of our trees, slowest to fastest

Each row gives a height measured on the species and the conditions behind it, slowest first. The class is the one our growth estimator uses.

| Plant | Class | Growth measured | Conditions |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [Rock elm](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/rock-elm/index.html.md) | Slow | 20 inches tall 10 years after planting | Among competing growth, northern Wisconsin |
| [American holly](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/american-holly/index.html.md) | Slow | 6 feet in 16 years | Under medium shade |
| [Shagbark hickory](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/shagbark-hickory/index.html.md) | Slow | 23 to 43 feet at 40 years | Forest stands in three regions |
| [Common hackberry](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/common-hackberry/index.html.md) | Medium | 1.3 feet a year for 6 years | Planted in Great Plains shelterbelts |
| [Black gum](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/black-gum/index.html.md) | Slow | 12 to 15 feet in about 10 years | Faster with regular watering and fertilizer |
| [Bald cypress](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/bald-cypress/index.html.md) | Medium | 69 feet at 41 years | Tallest trees of a Mississippi plantation on old cropland |
| [Black maple](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/black-maple/index.html.md) | Medium | 16 feet after 9 seasons | Planted trees |
| [Black walnut](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/black-walnut/index.html.md) | Fast | 24 feet at 14 years, 40 for the best tree | Southern Illinois plantation on good ground |
| [Swamp cottonwood](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/swamp-cottonwood/index.html.md) | Medium | 2.5 feet a year over 30 years | Poorly drained ground |
| [Black locust](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/black-locust/index.html.md) | Fast | 1.5 feet a year on below-average sites, 4 or more on good | First 10 years in Central States plantations |
| [Cherrybark oak](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/cherrybark-oak/index.html.md) | Fast | 14 feet in 5 years | Arkansas planting disked every year |
| [Pecan](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/pecan/index.html.md) | Medium | 35 inches a year for several years | Loamy soils in good weather |
| [Sassafras](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/sassafras/index.html.md) | Fast | 12 feet in 3 years | Root sprouts on a good open site |

No measured figure turned up for Washington hawthorn, a medium grower in our estimator.

## Is a fast grower better?

Speed has a price. A 2020 study led by R.J.W. Brienen at the University of Leeds read the rings of more than 210,000 trees of 110 species. Fast early growth went with a short life, across species and among trees of one species:

> "Faster growth has a direct and negative effect on tree lifespan, independent of the environmental mechanisms driving growth rate variation." (Brienen and colleagues, *Forest carbon sink neutralized by pervasive growth-lifespan trade-offs*, 2020)

Fast growers among the trees we grow bear it out. [Gray birch](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/gray-birch/index.html.md) often lasts about 20 years, [northern catalpa](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/northern-catalpa/index.html.md) about 60 and [laurel oak](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/laurel-oak/index.html.md) 50 to 70. Laurel oak also has the poorest timber of the red oak group. Swamp cottonwood seldom stays sound past 80.

Fast growth and sound wood do go together in three of ours:

- **Black walnut.** It bears best from about 30 years for another 100, and its wood is among the most coveted of native hardwoods. Zones 4 to 9, 70 to 100 feet.
- **Cherrybark oak.** It is one of the hardiest and fastest-growing oaks, and its heavy, strong wood makes an excellent timber tree. Zones 6 to 9, 80 to 120 feet.
- **Black locust.** Its hard, strong wood resists rot, and it lives about 90 years. Borers hit slow trees on poor sites hardest. Zones 4 to 8, 40 to 70 feet.

## Reading a year's growth on your own tree

A twig keeps its own record. Each spring the end bud opens and its scales fall, leaving a ring of [bud scale scars](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/glossary/index.html.md) around the stem. A twig makes one end bud a year, so the stretch from the tip back to the first ring is last year's growth, and each stretch below it is a year older.

![Reddish striped maple twig ending in two red buds, with rings of scars at intervals along the stem](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/articles/how-fast-native-trees-grow-3-1000.jpg?v=037a352d "A striped maple twig in a hardwood understory near Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, on December 28, 2012. Each ring of bud scale scars marks where a year's growth began.")
*Photo: Rob Routledge, Sault College, Bugwood.org, [CC BY 3.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0) ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAcer_pensylvanicum_5487704.jpg))*

Starting at a twig's tip, measure the stretch between each ring and the next. Stretches that shrink year by year show when the tree came under stress. Slow growth over many years points to a cause that compounds, such as planting too deep or damaged roots. A leaf scar is a different mark: it sits under a bud and does not circle the twig.

Then hold last year's stretch against the rates our growth estimator uses for a young tree past its first two years:

| Class | Poor site, inches | Average site, inches | Good site, inches |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Slow | 8 | 12 | 16 |
| Medium | 12 | 18 | 23 |
| Fast | 21 | 33 | 43 |

The column your tree matches is the site to give the estimator. A tree well below the poor-site figure after its first two years has a problem worth finding, and the [planting-site check](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/site-check/index.html.md?species=washington-hawthorn) tests its spot against the species.

## How big yours will be in ten or twenty years

Our growth estimator runs these rates forward for any species we grow, from its height and trunk now and its site. It shows the range from poor ground to good. Enter the height your tree had in its second or third spring, since the estimator gives every tree its full rate from the first year. Two to try:

- [Washington hawthorn on an average site](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/?species=washington-hawthorn&site=average): about 24 feet at twenty years from a 3-foot sapling, and 19 to 27 feet from poor ground to good.
- [Black walnut on a good site](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/?species=black-walnut&site=good): about 37 feet at ten years and 64 at twenty.

## Common questions

### How fast do trees grow in a year?

A young tree in full sun on decent ground grows about a foot a year if it is a slow species, 1 to 2 feet if medium and 2 feet or more if fast. Shade, grass over the roots, poor soil and deer can hold any of them to a few inches.

### How long does it take a tree to grow?

On an average site our growth estimator takes a 3-foot Washington hawthorn to nine tenths of its height in about 27 years, a black walnut in 52 and a black gum in 100. Add the first year or two after planting, which go mostly to roots.

### How fast does a Washington hawthorn grow?

At a medium pace, about 1.5 feet a year while young, which our growth estimator turns into about 16 feet at ten years from a 3-foot sapling on an average site. A newly planted one may add little in its first year while it roots.

### What is the fastest-growing native tree?

In our table, black locust on good sites and sassafras root sprouts grew fastest, about 4 feet a year. Pioneers such as gray birch grow 2 to 5 feet a year on fertile ground but rarely live past 50.

### How can I make a tree grow faster?

Keep a ring around it free of grass and weeds, water it in dry spells, and guard it from deer until its top is out of reach. In an Indiana trial, black walnuts given three years of weed control stood 39 inches taller at 10 years than those given two.

## Sources

- [Tree Growth Information](https://mdc.mo.gov/trees-plants/tree-seedlings/tree-growth-information): Missouri Department of Conservation: the growth key of 12 inches or less a year for slow, 12 to 24 for medium and 24 or more for fast, and the department's ratings of hawthorns as slow and black walnut as medium.
- [Overcup Oak](https://research.fs.usda.gov/silvics/overcup-oak): USDA Forest Service, Silvics of North America, with the chapters on American basswood, American holly, baldcypress, black locust, black maple, black walnut, cherrybark oak, common persimmon, flowering dogwood, hackberry, laurel oak, longleaf pine, pecan, rock elm, sassafras, shagbark hickory, striped maple and swamp cottonwood: the quotation on overcup oak's seedlings, the measured growth in the table and the text, roots before tops in seedlings and the grass stage, the effects of soil, shade, weeds and seed source, and the lives and wood of the fast growers.
- [Nyssa sylvatica](https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/nyssa-sylvatica/): NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox: black gum at about 12 to 15 feet in about ten years, faster with a good watering and fertilizer schedule.
- [Forest carbon sink neutralized by pervasive growth-lifespan trade-offs](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7479146/): R.J.W. Brienen and colleagues, Nature Communications 11 (2020): tree rings of more than 210,000 trees of 110 species, and fast early growth going with a short life across species and within them.
- [Protection of tree seedlings from deer browsing](https://research.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/12824): J.S. Ward and G.R. Stephens, USDA Forest Service General Technical Report NE-197 (1995): the Connecticut trial, 92 percent of unprotected black walnut browsed, walnuts shorter after three years than at planting, and tree shelters against mesh sleeves.
- [Use terminal bud scars to gage growth rate of trees](https://extension.illinois.edu/blogs/welcome-my-jungle/2022-04-01-use-terminal-bud-scars-gage-growth-rate-trees): Illinois Extension, Welcome to My Jungle (2022): one end bud a year, the ring its scales leave, counting back from the tip, last year's growth measured to the first ring, and leaf scars that do not circle the twig.
- [Decline of Newly Planted Trees](https://yardandgarden.extension.iastate.edu/how-to/decline-newly-planted-trees): Iowa State University Extension and Outreach: comparing the growth between bud scars over several years, and slow growth over many years pointing to planting depth or root damage.