Red Pine

Size, growth and what to expect

Red pine grows at a medium pace, about a foot and a half a year in our growth estimator. It matures at 50 to 80 feet with a crown 20 to 25 feet wide, and the tallest have reached 150 feet. It lives 200 to 400 years, and the oldest tree dated by its rings reached 500.

Open-grown trees begin to bear cones at 15 to 25 years, and good crops come every 3 to 7 years. Pollen is shed in May and June, and the cones ripen from August to October of their second year. The cones are 1.5 to 2.5 inches long and shed their seed through fall and winter. Bald eagles and ospreys nest in old red pines, and red squirrels and snowshoe hares feed on it.

It grows wild around the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence, from Nova Scotia and Maine west to Manitoba and Minnesota, and south to northern Pennsylvania, northern New Jersey and Connecticut. It also grows locally in northern Illinois and the mountains of West Virginia. It struggles where summers are hot and humid and is not suited to planting south of zone 5.

How to grow Red Pine

Red pine needs full sun and a lean, acid soil of sand or gravel that drains well, and once established it stands drought. It does best where summers are cool and winters cold. On heavy, poorly drained or limy soil, and where summers are warm, it grows poorly and suffers more pests. Plant it 15 feet from a wall, and set trees 15 feet apart. Keep it more than 50 feet from overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant in early spring or fall, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper, with the root collar at the soil line. Firm the soil around the roots and water it in. Fresh seed needs no chilling and can be sown in fall. Seed that has been stored needs two months of cold, damp storage in the refrigerator before a spring sowing. Sow it a quarter inch deep and keep the bed moist.

Water every week or two through the first summer, then only in long droughts. Keep grass and brush pulled back for the first few years, since young red pines do not grow under sod or dense brush. Guard seedlings where snowshoe hares and rabbits are many, since they can kill them. In a group it sheds its lower branches on its own, so it needs little pruning.

Each tree carries both male and female cones, and red pine is self-fertile enough to set good seed even as a lone tree. Scleroderris canker, needle cast diseases and root rots kill young plantations, and in the Northeast the red pine scale kills trees of every size. Sawflies strip young trees, and pine shoot moths deform them. Spray from road salt also kills it.