Photo: Krzysztof Ziarnek, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped · Wikimedia Commons

Carolina Willow

Salix caroliniana

Also called coastal plain willow, swamp willow, Salix longipes.

The common small willow of southern swamps and stream banks, fast on wet ground, with early yellow catkins for bees and leaves that feed viceroys.

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Saplings ship bare-root or in a pot, usually 12 to 18 inches tall, in the dormant season, and their height and age are stated here with the price, once available.

We grow it as saplings. One email when it is listed with prices, and nothing else. Or ask, and we reply with what is ready now. Live plants ship February to May and October to November.

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Tolerates wet soilWildlife valueHoney tree

Type: Small tree
Mature height: 15–30 ft
USDA zones: 6–10
Growth rate: Fast
Flowers: March to May
Fruit: Cottony seed, April to June
First crop: 5 to 10 years
Mature spread: 30 ft
Sun: Full, Part
Soil moisture: Average, Wet
Grows wild in: Stream banks, floodplain forests, swamps and wet flats
Native range: 22 states and the District of Columbia, north to Pennsylvania, south to Florida and west to Texas
List all 23
Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia
Also recorded, not native, in New Jersey. See what is native in your state

Hardiness zones Find your zone by ZIP code

Carolina willow is the common small tree willow of the low country of the Southeast, at home on stream banks and in swamps, marshes, ditches and pond edges, usually over limy ground. Its long, narrow leaves are glossy green above and whitish beneath, and wider than those of black willow. It is at its best in early spring, when it blooms yellow and then sets masses of white, cottony fruit while little else is in flower. Set it in a rain garden, a bioswale or a wet corner by a pond.

Size, growth and what to expect

Carolina willow grows fast, about 2.75 feet a year in our growth estimator. Expect a small tree of 15 to 30 feet, often on several stems, with a spreading, open crown 15 to 30 feet wide.

Yellow catkins open from March to May, as the leaves come, and bees work them for pollen and nectar. Female trees then shed masses of white, cottony seed from April to June. The leaves feed viceroy, mourning cloak, red-spotted purple and eastern tiger swallowtail caterpillars, and its thickets give wildlife cover.

It grows wild from southern Pennsylvania and Maryland south through Florida, and west to central Texas, Oklahoma and eastern Kansas. Look for it on floodplains, in swamps, marshes and ditches, and along rocky streams, usually over limy ground. Ohio lists it as potentially threatened, and NatureServe ranks it critically imperiled in Mississippi and Pennsylvania.

How to grow Carolina Willow

Carolina willow needs full sun or light shade and soil that never dries out, from wet sand to clay, and it takes standing water. It is not drought tolerant. It takes some salty wind, but not salt spray or flooding with salt water. Plant it 15 feet from a wall and at least 15 feet from overhead wires, and set trees 15 feet apart.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them dormant, from leaf fall until bud swell, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper. Set the root flare at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the mulch clear of the trunk. Willow seed lives only a few weeks, too short a time to sell it as a packet. To raise your own, sow it on the surface of wet, bare soil the day the capsules open, and keep it moist. It also grows from stem and root cuttings.

Water weekly through the first summer unless the ground stays wet. Guard young trees from deer, rabbits and beavers for the first few years. Prune in the dormant season to train it to a tree, since it often grows as a shrub with several stems.

Trees are male or female, and bees carry pollen from the male catkins to the female ones. Willow seedlings bear their first seed at 5 to 10 years. Its wood is weak and breaks easily. Willow scab, black canker, powdery mildew and crown gall can strike, and aphids, scale, leaf beetles and borers feed on it.

Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.

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