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red pine

Pinus resinosa · Pinaceae

red pine (Pinus resinosa)
Photo: (c) Tom Norton, some rights reserved (CC BY) · CC BY · via iNaturalist

red pine (Pinus resinosa) is a perennial tree in the Pinaceae family. It is native to North America. USDA records it as hardy in zone 2 and warmer, down to about -43°F.

At a glance

Typetree USDA
Lifecycleperennial USDA
Native statusnative USDA
Mature height80 ft USDA
Lightfull-sun USDA
Water needlow USDA
Growth raterapid USDA
Soil pH4.5–6 USDA
BloomMarch–May USDA
Flower colorBrown USDA
Hardiness zones2 and warmer USDA
Guild layercanopy Derived
Nursery availabilityRoutinely Available USDA

USDA quoted from the USDA PLANTS database · Derived computed by a fixed rule from those columns. No value on this page is estimated.

Growing conditions

It needs full sun. USDA rates it as having low water needs once established. It is recorded on soils from pH 4.5 to 6 — acidic ground. Its cold limit is zone 2; USDA publishes no warm-end limit, so gardeners in warmer zones should check local heat tolerance separately.

Size and growth

At maturity it reaches about 80 ft, making it a large tree that will dominate its site. It grows quickly, which matters when you are timing a planting around the layers above it.

Bloom period

USDA records a bloom period of March through May. The flower color USDA records is brown. Bloom timing is how the Guild Builder overlaps flowering across a planting so something is in flower for as much of the season as possible.

Bloom period is a claim about when this plant flowers. It is deliberately not a pollinator rating — no dataset we trust publishes one, so we do not make that claim. See Data & sources.

Role in a guild

Canopy. In a layered planting this is the tallest layer of a planting — it sets the light budget everything beneath it lives on. We derive the layer from the plant's growth habit and mature height using a fixed rule, so the same inputs always produce the same layer.

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Tags

evergreensandy-soildeer-resistantacidic-soilnativefull-sundrought-tolerantfast-growingcanopy

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Others in Pinus

Similar role and hardiness

Where this data comes from

Every value on this page comes from the USDA PLANTS database record for symbol PIRE, or is computed from those values by a fixed rule. Nothing here is estimated or model-generated. Where USDA publishes no value, this page omits the claim rather than filling the gap.

Read our full data sources and methodology.

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