# What grows back when a field is left alone

> An abandoned field in the East goes from goldenrod to redcedar, sweetgum, tuliptree and black locust in a decade, and to oaks in a century. How to steer it.

Published 2026-09-15, updated 2026-10-27. Tags: Forests & habitat, Growth & age, What to plant. By Blue Whale Trees, a native tree nursery in the United States. Web version: https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/old-field-succession/

Stop mowing a field in the eastern United States and it becomes a forest without any help from you. The process is reliable enough that ecologists have watched it for a century and named it old-field succession, and it follows the same script from New Jersey to Georgia. It is worth knowing whether you want to speed it up, slow it down or steer it.

![Young eastern red cedar standing alone in an abandoned field of dry grass](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/articles/old-field-succession-1-1000.jpg?v=4dda43be "An eastern red cedar in an old field near Oxford, Ohio: one of the first trees in, and far from the last.")
*Photo: Greg Hume, [CC BY-SA 3.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AJuniperus_virginiana_near_Oxford%2C_Ohio.jpg))*

The schedule below is the usual one in the East, and it slides with the soil, the region and how far the seed has to travel.

| Years | What is there | What is arriving |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year 1 | annual weeds: horseweed, ragweed, foxtail | the perennials, and the first tree seed on the wind and in droppings |
| Years 2 to 3 | perennials: goldenrod, asters, broomsedge on poorer ground | [redcedar](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/eastern-red-cedar/index.html.md) along the fence lines, blackberry and sumac from the edges |
| Years 10 to 20 | a thicket of saplings taller than a person, then a young forest | the canopy closing over |
| Years 30 to 40 | a closed pioneer canopy | oaks, hickories, [beech](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/american-beech/index.html.md), [black gum](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/black-gum/index.html.md) and, in the north, sugar maple, from nuts carried in by squirrels and jays |
| Year 50 | [black locust](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/black-locust/index.html.md) dying out, riddled by borers and shaded | hardwoods overtopping the redcedar and the pine |
| About year 100 | an oak and hickory woods with a few enormous tuliptrees | the last of the pioneers going, the tuliptrees excepted |

## The first ten years

The first summer belongs to annual weeds: horseweed, ragweed, foxtail. Within two or three years the perennials take over: goldenrod, asters and, on poorer ground, the tawny broomsedge that makes an old field glow orange in winter. Blackberry and sumac creep in from the edges.

![Field edge of scarlet, orange and yellow trees and a few dead snags above a mown strip and tall tan grass, blue sky](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/articles/old-field-succession-4-1000.jpg?v=328dfffe "A field edge on October 26, 2026, its red maples in scarlet beside tall grass. Red maple, sweetgum and tuliptree reach old fields early, on seed carried by the wind.")
*Photo: Blue Whale Trees*

The first trees arrive at the same time, most of them from the air. Eastern redcedar comes in along fence lines, where birds that ate its blue, berry-like cones have perched. Sweetgum, tuliptree and red maple blow in on [winged seed](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/what-tree-dropped-this/index.html.md) from any tree within a few hundred feet. [Black cherry](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/black-cherry/index.html.md), [sassafras](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/sassafras/index.html.md) and persimmon arrive in bird and raccoon droppings, and black locust by seed and [root suckers](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/glossary/index.html.md#root-sucker) from the nearest colony. Along a ditch, sycamore seedlings line up in the wet ground.

In the South, and on sand or worn-out Piedmont clay anywhere, pines take the field instead: loblolly southward, Virginia and shortleaf pine farther north. Ten years on, a field nobody planted is a thicket of saplings taller than a person, and by twenty it is a young forest.

![Eastern red cedars standing in a goldenrod meadow with young hardwoods and pines behind them](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/articles/old-field-succession-2-1000.jpg?v=10b24e23 "Eastern red cedars in a goldenrod meadow on State Game Land 168, Monroe County, Pennsylvania, in October 2015: the first trees into an old field, a few years ahead of the thicket.")
*Photo: Nicholas A. Tonelli, [CC0](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en) ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AEarly_Autumn_%282%29_%2821926610576%29.jpg))*

## Why the pioneers win

None of these is the best tree in the region. They win the field for other reasons:

- **Their seed travels.** Winged seeds and bird-carried fruit arrive by the thousand, years before an acorn or hickory nut, which mostly falls under its parent.
- **They grow fast in full sun.** Pioneers put their energy into height, and in the open they outrun everything.
- **They tolerate bad soil.** Old fields are compacted, eroded and short on nitrogen. Redcedar and persimmon shrug that off, and black locust [fixes its own nitrogen](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/native-trees-and-shrubs-that-fix-nitrogen/index.html.md) through bacteria on its roots, grows where nothing else will, and leaves the soil richer than it found it.
- **They spread on their own.** Sassafras, [persimmon](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/american-persimmon/index.html.md) and black locust send up root suckers, so one seedling becomes a patch.

The same traits make them poor at holding what they win: nearly all need full sun to regenerate, so their own seedlings die in the shade they cast.

## How fast they really grow

The pioneers' [reputation for speed](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/how-fast-native-trees-grow/index.html.md) is deserved, but the numbers get inflated. On a decent site in full sun, once established, tuliptree, sweetgum and sycamore typically add two to three feet of height a year through their first couple of decades. They add more in the best years on rich bottomland and a foot or less on a dry shale bank. Black locust is quick in its first years, sometimes as quick as tuliptree, but it slows sooner, and on the thin ground where it usually appears a foot or two a year is typical. Persimmon and redcedar are slower, often a foot a year, sometimes two.

> "Young trees grow very fast on good sites, but the species matures early and growth rate decreases rapidly after 30 years, especially on poor sites" (USDA Forest Service, Silvics of North America, *Black locust*)

A planted tree does not hit those rates at once; its first two or three years go into roots, which is why the seedlings that leave Blue Whale Trees look small for their age. The [growth estimator](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/index.html.md) takes species, site quality and years. It turns them into a range rather than one number. The spread is the point: the same species can be fifteen feet tall or forty at ten years old.

## The second act

By thirty or forty years the pioneers are a closed canopy, and what happens next happens beneath it. Oaks, hickories, beech, black gum and, in the north, sugar maple come up in the shade from nuts carried in by squirrels and jays, and grow slowly, a few inches a year, waiting.

Black locust dies out first, riddled by borers and shaded out, often within fifty years. Redcedar and pine follow as the hardwoods overtop them. Sweetgum and tuliptree last much longer, tuliptree for two centuries or more, but they cannot replace themselves in shade, and the forest slowly turns over to the trees that can. A century after the last hay was cut, the field is an oak and hickory woods with a few enormous tuliptrees in it. Only a stone wall or a plow terrace shows what it was.

> "However, stands formed through invasion of old fields may deteriorate at around 60 years of age as hardwoods or other competing species become established." (USDA Forest Service, Silvics of North America, *Eastern redcedar*)

![Low wall of stacked fieldstones running beside a dirt trail through a forest of tall, slender trees and ferns](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/articles/old-field-succession-3-1000.jpg?v=f1718b64 "A stone wall beside a trail in Moore State Park, Paxton, Massachusetts, on September 1, 2019. In woods that grew up on old fields, a wall like this is often the last sign of the farm.")
*Photo: Mcvoorhis, [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMooreStatePark-TrailByStonewall.jpg))*

That is the script when it goes well. Two things stall it. Deer eat oak and hickory seedlings by preference, and in much of the East there are enough of them to remove nearly every one, leaving a forest with no next generation. And invasive shrubs and vines (autumn olive, multiflora rose, bush honeysuckle, privet, oriental bittersweet) can seize an old field in its first decade and hold it as a thicket that trees cannot get through.

## If you own an old field

The pioneers will come whether you plant them or not, so put your effort into what does not come on its own.

- Keep some of the pioneers. A light canopy of redcedar, locust or young tuliptree breaks the wind and gives young oaks the partial shade they do well in.
- Plant the later species into the young stand: [oaks](https://bluewhaletrees.com/shop/index.html.md?q=quercus), hickories, black gum, beech, whatever the site and region call for, which [the tree finder](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/tree-finder/index.html.md) will narrow for the ground you have. Small seedlings planted well outgrow big ones planted badly, and [the planting itself](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/ten-planting-mistakes/index.html.md) is where most are lost.
- Protect each one from deer with [a tube or cage](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/protecting-trees-from-animals/index.html.md) until it is above browse height, usually five to eight years.
- Pull [invasive shrubs](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/invasive-vines-and-shrubs/index.html.md) while they are small, and keep at it. A thicket of ten-year-old autumn olive is a project; a hundred seedlings are an afternoon.
- Stop mowing the parts you want to become forest. Every pass resets the clock to year one.
- Be patient. The pioneers will show you something in five years; the oaks will take thirty to look like anything. That is the pace forests have always run at.

![Young black oak with broad, glossy, bristle-tipped leaves growing up through grass under the needles of a white pine](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/articles/old-field-succession-5-1000.jpg?v=a9ead921 "A young black oak coming up in the partial shade of a white pine. A light canopy of pioneers gives young oaks the partial shade they do well in.")
*Photo: Blue Whale Trees*

## Common questions

### How long does it take for a field to become woods?

Ten years gives you a thicket of saplings taller than a person, twenty a young forest, thirty to forty a closed canopy, and about a century an oak and hickory woods.

### Do I have to plant anything?

Only what does not arrive on its own: the pioneers come whether you plant them or not, and the oaks, hickories, beech and black gum are the ones worth planting into the young stand.

### What stops a field from turning into forest?

Deer, which eat nearly every oak and hickory seedling in much of the East, and invasive shrubs and vines that can hold an old field as a thicket for decades.

## Sources

- [Juniperus virginiana, Fire Effects Information System](https://www.fs.usda.gov/database/feis/plants/tree/junvir/all.html): USDA Forest Service: eastern red cedar as an old-field pioneer.
- [Liquidambar styraciflua, Fire Effects Information System](https://www.fs.usda.gov/database/feis/plants/tree/liqsty/all.html): USDA Forest Service: sweetgum's role in Piedmont and coastal-plain succession.
- [Silvics of North America, Volume 2: Hardwoods](https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/1548): USDA Forest Service: growth rates of the pioneers and what follows them.
- [Eastern redcedar, Silvics of North America](https://research.fs.usda.gov/silvics/eastern-redcedar): USDA Forest Service: redcedar among the first to invade abandoned fields, and old-field stands deteriorating at around 60 years as hardwoods and pines take over.
- [Black locust, Silvics of North America](https://research.fs.usda.gov/silvics/black-locust): USDA Forest Service: fast juvenile growth that slows after 30 years, root suckers as the main natural reproduction, and locust borer damage.

## Related

- Next step: [Open the tree finder](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/tree-finder/index.html.md?size=large-tree)
- [Protecting young trees from voles, rabbits, deer and squirrels](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/protecting-trees-from-animals/index.html.md)
- [Native trees and shrubs for wildlife: what deer, squirrels, bears, bats and turtles get from a planting](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/native-trees-for-wildlife/index.html.md)
- [What old growth actually looks like](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/what-old-growth-looks-like/index.html.md)
- [Protecting forestland for good: conservation easements and the other tools](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/protecting-forestland-for-good/index.html.md)