# Pond Pine (Pinus serotina)

> A pine for wet, acid ground whose round cones can stay shut on the branches for years, until the heat of a fire opens them.

Also called pocosin pine, marsh pine, bay pine. Category: Uncommon Yard Trees. Grown from seed by Blue Whale Trees. Web version: https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/pond-pine/

![Pond pine (Pinus serotina) crown of long needle tufts and old cones against a blue sky](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/plants/pond-pine-h1610-800.jpg)
*Photo: Douglas Goldman, CC BY 4.0 · [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3APinus_serotina%2C_Colleton_County%2C_South_Carolina_3.jpg)*

## Facts

- Type: Medium tree
- Mature height: 40 to 70 ft
- USDA hardiness zones: 7 to 9
- Grows wild in: The coast, sandy barrens, swamps and wet flats
- Native range: 9 states, north to New Jersey, south to Florida and west to Alabama (Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia)
- Sun: Full, Part
- Soil moisture: Wet, Average
- Growth rate: Medium
- Traits: Evergreen, Tolerates wet soil, Wildlife value
- Sold as: Saplings, Seed

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

## Availability

Not yet priced online. Ask at captain@bluewhaletrees.com or leave an email on the web page to be told when it is listed.

## Notes

Pond pine is a medium-sized pine of the southeastern Coastal Plain and the tree that usually dominates the pocosins, the peaty shrub bogs of the Carolinas. Among the southern pines it takes the wettest ground, in swamps, around ponds and on wet sand flats. Unlike most pines, it sprouts from the stump and along the trunk after fire or cutting. The endangered red-cockaded woodpecker nests in old pond pines softened by heart rot. Plant it at a pond edge or in a wet low spot where few other trees will grow.

## Size, growth and what to expect

Pond pine grows at a medium pace, about a foot and a half a year in our growth estimator. On wet peat it grows far more slowly. Trees in a North Carolina pocosin averaged 28 feet at 20 years and 49 feet at 50. It matures at 40 to 70 feet with an open, irregular crown.

Pollen flies in March and April, and the cones ripen about 18 months later, in September and October of the next year. The round cones are 2 to 3 inches long and can stay on the tree for up to 10 years. It feeds the caterpillars of the imperial moth, as well as songbirds and small mammals.

It grows wild on the Coastal Plain from Cape May, New Jersey, to central Florida and southeastern Alabama. Most wild stands date from a fire, which clears the brush from the seedbed. In the pocosins it can take over after a fire kills Atlantic white cedar.

## How to grow Pond Pine

Pond pine wants full sun and takes light shade. It needs an acid soil of sand, loam or peat that stays moist to wet. Mature trees stand long flooding, though they grow slowly in it. It grows faster where the soil drains between wet spells. Wind can damage it, so plant it 25 feet from a wall, and set trees 20 feet apart for a grove. Keep it more than 50 feet from overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant while it is dormant, from late fall to early spring, 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. Seed needs about a month of cold, damp storage in the refrigerator. Sow it in spring, pressed into the surface of a moist bed and covered thinly with pine straw. Keep the bed moist but never flooded.

Water weekly through the first summer unless the ground stays wet. Keep grass and brush pulled back for the first few years, since competition slows young pond pines. It is resistant to deer. Prune only dead or broken limbs.

Each tree carries both male and female cones and the wind carries the pollen, but a lone tree tends to set less seed than trees in a group. Trees start to bear cones at 4 to 10 years, and large crops come every year. Southern pine beetle, black turpentine beetle and engraver beetles attack it. Fusiform rust cankers its stems, though it is half as susceptible as loblolly pine. Old trees often carry red heart, a trunk rot.

## Sources

- [USDA Forest Service, Silvics of North America: Pond Pine, Bramlett 1990](https://research.fs.usda.gov/silvics/pond-pine)
- [USDA Forest Service, Fire Effects Information System: Pinus serotina, Archer 2000](https://www.fs.usda.gov/database/feis/plants/tree/pinser/all.html)
- [USDA Forest Service, Woody Plant Seed Manual: Pinus chapter, Krugman and Jenkinson](https://www.fs.usda.gov/nsl/Wpsm/Pinus.pdf)
- [Flora of North America, vol. 2: Pinus serotina](http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=210001651)
- [NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox: Pinus serotina](https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/pinus-serotina/)
- [Virginia Tech Dendrology: pond pine](https://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=362)
- [Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center: Pinus serotina](https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=PISE)
- [Trees and Shrubs Online: Pinus serotina, from New Trees by Grimshaw and Bayton](https://www.treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/pinus/pinus-serotina/)
- [Florida Native Plant Society: Pinus serotina](https://www.fnps.org/plant/pinus-serotina)
- [NatureServe Explorer: Pinus serotina](https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.147377/Pinus_serotina)
- [New Jersey Natural Heritage Program: List of Endangered Plant Species and Plant Species of Concern, January 2024](https://dep.nj.gov/wp-content/uploads/parksandforests/njplantlist.pdf)

## Read before planting

- [Ten planting mistakes that quietly kill trees](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/ten-planting-mistakes/index.html.md)
- [Transplanting young trees: timing, water and protection](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/transplanting-young-trees/index.html.md)
- [Protecting young trees from voles, rabbits, deer and squirrels](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/protecting-trees-from-animals/index.html.md)
- [Native trees for insects: the beetles, wasps, cicadas and fireflies that everything else eats](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/native-trees-for-insects/index.html.md)
- [Native trees and shrubs for butterflies and moths: host plants first, nectar second](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/native-trees-for-butterflies-and-moths/index.html.md)
- [Multistem or single stem? Sometimes the trunk is hiding the answer](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/multistem-or-single-stem/index.html.md)

## Related

- [Planting-site check](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/site-check/index.html.md): for a thrive, struggle or fail verdict on Pond Pine, add ?species=pond-pine with zone (2 to 10), sun (full, part, shade) and moisture (dry, average, wet) to that address, for example ?species=pond-pine&zone=7&sun=part&moisture=average.
- [Companion species for Pond Pine](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/companions/index.html.md?species=pond-pine): the natives that share its ground and the plants that pair with it in a yard.
- [Growth estimator](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/index.html.md): how the height and trunk projections are made; the estimate itself runs in the browser at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/#species=pond-pine
- [Seed sowing planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/index.html.md): how Pond Pine is sown, in the chart for every species (treatment, cold days, depth, timing); the dated plan runs in the browser at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/#species=pond-pine
- [Pollination planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/index.html.md): what Pond Pine needs for a crop and how many to plant, in the table for every species; the planner runs in the browser at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/#plants=pond-pine:2
- [Bloom and fruit calendar](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/calendar/index.html.md): the months Pond Pine flowers and fruits, in the grid for every species.