Native trees for a warming climate: what to plant now for the decades ahead

Plant natives that are hardy in your zone today, that grow wild well to the south of you as well as near you, and that take heat and drought. Plant several kinds. Tree models expect most eastern species’ habitat to shift north by 2100. In the same models, white oak, black oak, post oak, black gum and eastern red cedar rate very good at coping. The spruce, fir, hemlock and birches of cool forests rate fair or poor. Winter still sets the limit, because a warmer average does not end the cold snap.

What has already changed

The 2023 Plant Hardiness Zone Map runs about a quarter zone warmer than the 2012 map across much of the country, because it averages the winters of 1991 to 2020 instead of 1976 to 2005. Some of the change comes from more weather stations and better mapping, and a few places moved to a colder zone. The mapmakers warn against reading a new zone as proof of warming:

“Because the USDA PHZM represents 30-year averages of what are essentially extreme weather events […], changes in zones are not reliable evidence of whether there has been global warming.” (USDA Agricultural Research Service, Map Creation)

Climate change is read instead from 50 to 100 years of average temperatures. What already thrives in your yard will most likely keep thriving. The map’s limits are the subject of what a hardiness zone tells you.

What the decades ahead may bring

A tree planted now should still stand in 2100, so the forecast that matters is for 2070 to 2099. The tables below come from the Forest Service’s Climate Change Tree Atlas. Its projections raise the eastern states’ average yearly temperature by 6.1 degrees Fahrenheit on a lower emissions path and by 10.1 degrees on a higher one.

The same team’s maps put the coldest night of an average winter at least 8 to 9 degrees Celsius warmer over most of the Northeast and Midwest on the higher path, about 15 degrees Fahrenheit. On the lower path it warms there by about 6 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit. Each zone on the map spans 10 degrees.

Hot days multiply. By the end of the century the Northeast gains 29 days a year above 86 degrees on the lower path and 96 on the higher, and the Midwest 42 and 95. Above 86 degrees a tree’s photosynthesis can suffer, and long hot spells with drought are linked to trees dying. The two paths differ that much, so the honest forecast is the range between them.

Which natives gain ground, and which lose it

The Atlas models where 125 eastern trees will find suitable climate, soil and terrain in 2070 to 2099, averaged over three climate models. About 88 species gain at least a tenth more habitat and 26 lose at least a tenth. Most shift north, and on the higher path the center of the habitat moves over 60 miles for 81 of them. Trees spread by seed far more slowly than that, so much of the new northern habitat will go unreached for a century unless people plant it.

The gains are the less certain half. In 2019 the Atlas’s authors, Louis Iverson and colleagues, found highly reliable models behind only 12 of the 88 gaining species, against 12 of the 26 that lose. The Atlas also rates each species’ capability to cope. The rating weighs the habitat change, the species’ adaptability and how common it is. Since March 2026 the Atlas’s replacement, the Forest Ecosystem Atlas, has presented the same models as an interactive map.

Rated very good or good

The table below gives twelve of the trees we grow that rate very good or good, each on a model of medium or high reliability. The habitat figure is each species’ suitable habitat across the eastern states by 2100, as a multiple of today’s, on the two paths:

Anthracnose, flowering dogwood’s known disease, may yet overrule its rating. Of the common natives we do not grow, sugar maple and red maple rate very good and tuliptree good. Sugar maple’s habitat declines only modestly in the newer models, where earlier ones showed large losses in the south.

Rated fair or poor

Ten more rate fair or poor, most of them trees of cool northern and mountain forests. Bald cypress gains habitat up the eastern seaboard yet rates only fair, and as a bottomland tree it may not find moist soil everywhere it gains:

The three climate models disagree in direction only for eastern hemlock and sweet birch on the lower path, where one of them gives each a sliver more habitat. The other two, and all three on the higher path, give both less.

How to choose a tree that will still fit

Start with what is hardy in your zone today. Among those, favor a species whose wild range runs well to the south of you as well as through your area, since it already grows where summers run hotter. University of Maryland Extension advises looking past the strictly local to near-native trees, whose range takes in the next state south:

“Native and “near native” will be the better choices for supporting native wildlife and a resilient ecosystem in the year 2100.” (University of Maryland Extension, Planting Trees In Our Changing Climate)

Heat and drought come next. Post oak and bur oak are drought-hardy, common hackberry has survived extreme drought, and eastern red cedar withstands extremes of heat and cold. Balsam fir fails in hot, humid summers, and red spruce and yellow birch belong where summers stay cool.

Then plant several kinds, so that one pest or one hot summer cannot empty the yard. Pests travel with the warmth: eastern hemlock rates poor less for lost habitat than for the hemlock woolly adelgid, an insect from Asia whose spread north the Atlas ties to the warming climate. Streets of one tree lost their elms to Dutch elm disease and then their ashes to emerald ash borer, which is why a street needs more than one kind.

Within a species, where the seed grew matters too. How far seed can safely move north ahead of the warming is set out in seed source and provenance.

Why winter cold still decides

The hardiness map averages the coldest night of each winter over 30 years, so it shows neither the coldest night on record nor the coldest to come. A tree at the cold edge of its rating can thrive for several years and then die in a rare cold snap of a day or two. Southern red oak’s habitat may spread far north by 2100, yet the tree is hardy only to zone 6 today. Plant for the zone you have, which the ZIP code lookup reads from the 2023 map, and set a species at its cold edge in the warm pocket by a south-facing wall.

Water through the first hot summers

Young trees take the brunt of extreme weather, so a new tree’s first hot summers need steady water. The care calendar for a new tree gives the schedule up to establishment, and the watering calculator the amount. Water eastern hemlock, yellow birch and red spruce weekly through their first two summers. After that, an established tree needs water only in a long dry spell.

Where to start

Blue Whale Trees grows every tree it sells from seed, not grafted, so each sapling is genetically distinct and a planting of several carries real diversity. To choose:

• Your zone: the ZIP code lookup gives your half zone on the 2023 map.
• Your shortlist: the very good and good rows above whose zones take in yours, in two or three kinds.
• More candidates: the tree finder lists the large trees we grow for dry ground, and narrows them to your zone.
• Your spot: the site check grades a species against your zone, sun and soil.

Common questions

What native trees will do best in a warming climate?

Among the trees we grow, white, black, northern red, post and southern red oak rate very good at coping in the Climate Change Tree Atlas. Black gum, common hackberry and eastern red cedar do too. Choose among them by what is hardy in your zone today.

Which trees are most at risk from a warming climate?

Trees of cool northern and mountain forests. Red spruce, eastern hemlock, sweet birch and balsam poplar rate poor at coping, and balsam fir keeps only about half of today’s habitat by 2100 on either emissions path.

Should I plant trees native farther south?

Yes, if they are hardy in your zone now: a species whose range runs well south of you already grows where summers are hotter. Within a species, seed from a little to the south suits a warming climate, and guidelines treat a move of about 200 miles north as safe for most eastern trees.

Will my hardiness zone keep getting warmer?

Yes, on both emissions paths. By late this century the coldest night of an average Northeast or Midwest winter warms about 6 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit on a lower emissions path and about 15 on a higher one. Each zone is 10 degrees wide.