Native trees for the Southeast: the Carolinas, Georgia, north Florida, Tennessee and Kentucky

Across the Carolinas, Georgia, north Florida, Tennessee and Kentucky, the ground picks the tree. Bald cypress, tupelos and bottomland oaks take the Coastal Plain’s swamps and river bottoms, and live oak and yaupon the salt-swept coast. Longleaf pine and turkey oak hold the deep sand of the Sandhills. White oak, southern red oak, dogwood and redbud suit the Piedmont’s red clay where it drains. On the limestone of Tennessee’s Central Basin and Kentucky’s Bluegrass, plant chinquapin oak, bur oak and blue ash. Plant while the trees are dormant, from late fall to early spring.

Coastal Plain, Sandhills, Piedmont and limestone

Outside the mountains, the region holds four kinds of ground. The Coastal Plain is sediment laid down by a shallow sea that flooded the land again and again, oldest where it meets the Piedmont. Most of its soils are acid and sandy. In the easternmost Coastal Plain of North Carolina, swamps sit on organic soil too wet for fallen leaves and wood to break down. Pine flatwoods have a high water table.

The Sandhills lie along the Fall Line, between the Piedmont and the Coastal Plain: rolling hills of deep sand in the Carolinas and Georgia, shaped by fire, the home of longleaf pine over wiregrass. Inland, the Piedmont’s soils weathered in place from crystalline rock, and their subsoils run red, brown and yellow where they drain.

The mountain counties have their own guide, Native trees for the Southern Appalachians. Florida’s Gulf shore and peninsula belong to the Gulf Coast guide. West of the mountains, limestone underlies Tennessee’s Central Basin, where it breaks the surface as cedar glades. In the Bluegrass of central Kentucky it weathers into sinkholes, springs and fertile soil.

Zones, heat and when to plant

On the 2023 USDA map the region runs from zone 6a to 9b:

The coldest ground, 6a, is on the crests of the Great Smoky and Black mountains. The warmest, 9b, is on the sea islands of South Carolina and Georgia and north Florida’s Atlantic coast. The ZIP code lookup gives the half zone for any ZIP code.

A zone records only the average coldest night of the winter. Summer is the harder test here:

“Cold tolerance is an important limiting factor, but one of the biggest challenges for plants in the South is warm nights.” (NC State Extension, Extension Gardener Handbook, 11. Woody Ornamentals)

Warm nights make a plant burn through its food reserves. Heat zones count the days above 86 degrees Fahrenheit, and North Carolina alone spans four of the twelve. A plant that flourishes in the mountains may do poorly or fail on the Coastal Plain.

Plant bare-root saplings while they are dormant, from late fall to early spring. Fall suits most trees here best:

“Unlike the tops of ornamental plants that go dormant and cease growth for the winter, roots of ornamental plants in the Southeast continue to grow throughout the warmer fall and winter months.” (Clemson Cooperative Extension, Planting Trees Correctly)

That extra root growth can mean less watering the next summer. Southern magnolia, sweetbay, willow oak and black gum are the exceptions, best planted from late winter into spring. Blue Whale Trees ships live plants from February to May and from October to November, while they are dormant. An order placed in other months waits for the next window, as the shipping page says.

Swamps, bottoms and flatwoods

Two kinds of river shape the Coastal Plain’s bottoms. Red-water rivers rise in the Piedmont and the mountains and spread reddish, fertile silt in floods. Black-water rivers rise on the Coastal Plain, dark with organic matter, over poorer, coarser soil. These trees take wet ground, and how floodplain trees survive high water explains how:

Under the trees, buttonbush rings pond shores and holds them against erosion. Virginia sweetspire spreads along shaded streams, and deer mostly leave it alone.

The coast and the Sandhills

On the coast, salt spray and storms sort the trees:

• Live oak, the evergreen oak of the barrier islands, which stands salt spray better than the coast’s other broadleaf trees. Zones 7 to 10, 40 to 80 feet.
• Southern magnolia, an evergreen of rich Coastal Plain woods that stands up to hurricanes as a street tree. Zones 6 to 10, 60 to 80 feet.
• Yaupon, an evergreen holly without spines that survives salt spray, steady wind and heat. Zones 7 to 9, 10 to 25 feet.

Sandhill soil often has no clay in its top 10 feet and little organic matter. These trees of dry sand hold it:

• Longleaf pine, which takes dry soil better than any other southern pine. Zones 7 to 10, 60 to 120 feet.
• Turkey oak, one of longleaf’s commonest companions on the driest sand. Zones 7 to 9, 20 to 50 feet.
• Bluejack oak, which sprouts back from the root crown after fire. Zones 6 to 9, 20 to 40 feet.
• Sand post oak, a small post oak that shrugs off drought that kills lawn trees. Zones 6 to 9, 15 to 40 feet.
• Farkleberry, the sparkleberry, a crooked small tree whose leathery leaves often stay green through a southern winter. Zones 6 to 10, 10 to 25 feet.

Coastal azalea, the fragrant low azalea of the Atlantic Coastal Plain, spreads by underground stems until one plant can cover an acre in the Carolinas. We do not grow loblolly pine or wax myrtle.

The Piedmont’s red clay

Dig a hole before choosing. Red, brown or yellow subsoil means the clay drains and holds air, and gray means it stays wet. Nearly all the Southeast’s soils are acid, and North Carolina’s often run pH 4.5 to 5.5 unlimed. Acid soil keeps iron available, so iron chlorosis belongs to limed ground and limestone, not to native red clay. For a Piedmont yard:

Where the spade turns up gray, choose black gum or fringetree. Dogwood is virtually absent from poorly drained clay, and holly dies if the soil stays saturated for more than 17 percent of the growing season. Native trees and shrubs for heavy clay has a spade-and-bucket test for drainage.

Limestone: the Central Basin and the Bluegrass

Limestone cedar glades are open rock with thin, gravelly soil, found mainly in Tennessee’s Central Basin. Eastern red cedar, a juniper, rings them, rooting through cracks in the rock to water. Many glade plants grow almost nowhere else.

Kentucky’s Bluegrass was a savanna-woodland when settlers came, more open than the forest around it. At Griffith Woods, the best remnant, its old trees still stand:

“More than one half of the old, mature trees, ranging from 100 to 400 years old, are blue ash and another quarter of them are chinquapin oak.” (Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet, Griffith Woods Wildlife Management Area)

Bur oak, Shumard oak and Kentucky coffeetree stand among them. For limestone ground:

• Chinquapin oak, the white oak of limestone bluffs and glades. Zones 3 to 8, 40 to 60 feet.
• Blue ash, a tree of dry limestone slopes that survives emerald ash borer far better than green or white ash. Zones 4 to 7, 50 to 70 feet.
• Bur oak, whose thick, corky bark carries old trees through fire. Zones 3 to 8, 60 to 80 feet.
• Shumard oak, a big red oak little troubled by the yellowing that alkaline soil causes in many oaks. Zones 5 to 9, 50 to 80 feet.
• Kentucky coffeetree, which takes drought, alkaline soil and compaction. Zones 3 to 8, 60 to 80 feet.
• Eastern red cedar, which resists drought better than any other conifer native to the East. Zones 2 to 9, 30 to 50 feet.

Test the pH before planting an acid-soil tree over limestone. Bald cypress needles turn yellow on limestone soils.

Pests, disease and deer

Laurel wilt

The redbay ambrosia beetle, from Asia, was first detected in Georgia in 2002. The fungus it carries causes laurel wilt, which kills plants of the laurel family within weeks to months, and no treatment cures it. It spread inland from the coast and reached Kentucky in July 2019. Of the plants we grow, redbay, sassafras and spicebush are hosts. People moving firewood have spread it most, so never move firewood.

Emerald ash borer and spotted lanternfly

Emerald ash borer has known infested counties in every state here except Florida. Blue ash survives it far better than green or white ash. Spotted lanternfly, whose preferred host is the invasive tree-of-heaven, has populations in the same five states.

Thousand cankers disease

In July 2010, thousand cankers disease turned up on black walnut in Knoxville, Tennessee, the first report east of the 100th meridian. It is the work of a fungus and the walnut twig beetle together. Black walnut appears highly susceptible, and states may bar walnut material from leaving infested counties.

Oak decline and deer

Drought has caused southern red oak decline and death along the South Carolina coast. Deer browse young black gum and damage young sourwood and sweetbay, so tube or cage each for two to four years. Protecting trees from animals has the hardware.

Where to start

• Your state’s natives: North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and Kentucky each have a list.
• A tree for the spot: the tree finder is set here to zone 8, the Piedmont around Charlotte and Atlanta, for a small flowering tree in part shade.
• Distance from the house: the site check tests a white oak 40 feet from a wall in zone 8.
• The first summer: the watering calculator gives the water for a bare-root sapling in red clay.

Common questions

What native trees grow best in North Carolina?

Bald cypress and tupelos suit the Coastal Plain’s swamps, longleaf pine and turkey oak the Sandhills, and white oak, dogwood and redbud Piedmont clay that drains.

What trees grow well in red clay?

White oak, southern red oak, post oak and black gum all grow on Piedmont clay. Where the subsoil is gray and wet, choose black gum or white fringetree over dogwood.

When is the best time to plant trees in the South?

From late fall to early spring, while trees are dormant, and in fall for most, since roots keep growing through the Southeast’s mild fall and winter. Magnolias, willow oak and black gum go in at the end of winter.

What native evergreen trees grow in Georgia?

Live oak, southern magnolia, American holly and loblolly bay are native evergreens of Georgia, with longleaf pine on dry sand and yaupon on the coast.

What are good native shade trees for Tennessee and Kentucky?

On limestone, plant chinquapin oak, bur oak, Shumard oak and Kentucky coffeetree. Elsewhere, white oak and black gum suit most uplands, and willow oak and cherrybark oak the wet bottoms.