Pitch Pine, Northern Pitch Pine

Useful Tree. I planted these because they are supposed to be more salt and wind tolerant then white pine, and more disease resistant the...Read More Austrian Pine.

I planted some in a spot where I wouldn't be able to properly water them. The potted one is thriving...one tenth of the cheap bare root ones are alive. (Which sounds bad until you realize there was a drought and an epic winter.)

Not as attractive as white pine, and I noticed beetle holes in some old specimens in the woods while I was investigating the tree. They have a tendency to retain old cones in their branches, which isn't attractive. However, the salt and wind resistance make them a good choice as a wind break in a coastal area or a privacy screen along a heavily salted road. The fact they can regrow branches from their trunks (unlike other pines) could be useful for this application. Good alternative to the non-native and disease prone Austrian Pine.

I love all pine trees! I first saw a Pitch Pine planted in a yard in Downingtown in se PA. I recognized it by an irregular habit, needled...Read More sprouts coming from the trunk, and needles in fasicles of 3 being about 5" long. It was growing fine in a good quality clay soil that was barely acid in a residential yard. I told the owners that it was a special tree that one does not see just anywhere. It grows wild all over the pine barrens of southern New Jersey and in some of the different spots of serpentine barrens in far southeast Pennsylvania and northern Maryland. It also grows in different spots of the Appalachians and in New England, as in the Poconos of PA and in Cape Cod of MA. It does well in places of dry, low nutrient soils; whether the acid, sandy soils or the shallow soils derived from serpentine rock that have high amounts of chromium, magnesium, nickle, and other elements that are toxic to most plant growth in high amounts. Its oval cones are 2 to 3.5 inches long with sharp prickles on the scales. It usually is one of the large stately pines, but it can be a medium-sized, sort of scrubby pine. It has an irregularity in its habit that I find interesting. Some native plant nurseries grow some. I bought a 3 feet high potted plant from Redbud Nursery in Media, PA and planted it at a friend's backyard near Reading PA in 2019.

While some people do not like this tree's sometimes gnarled adult form, I am absolutely in love with it. Otherwise, the tree is hardy an...Read Mored tough, and so long as it is not planted in shade or in VERY saturated conditions, it should thrive.

Pitch Pine is in the sub-genus Pinus, also called the yellow or hard pines, along with Loblolly Pine (P. taeda), Shortleaf Pine (P...Read More. echinata), and Pond Pine (P. serotina), with which this tree hybridizes. The name rigida refers to the stiff, thorny projections on the cones. The cones normally stay on the tree for a couple years.

The needles are in bundles of three, about 5 inches long. Pitch Pine and Pond Pine (P. serotina) can have epicormic shoots, needles or small twigs and branches growing from the mature trunk.
These trees will grow in a wide variety of soils, and are an important food source for small mammals and birds. The open branching habit provides perches for larger birds like eagles and herons, especially near water.