Pines are the needle-leaved evergreen conifers of the genus Pinus, among the most recognizable and useful of all trees. They range from towering timber trees to picturesque, wind-sculpted forms and compact garden selections, all bearing their leaves in bundled needles and holding them through the year. Many grow quickly for a tree, putting on real height in a few short years and giving evergreen presence sooner than most.

In the landscape pines give scale, screening, and character. A tall specimen or a row makes a fast evergreen windbreak or backdrop; an open-grown tree develops the irregular, characterful form that painters love; and the high, filtered shade beneath a pine is exactly the cool, bright canopy that woodland plants want. Their fallen needles even make an excellent, acidifying mulch for the beds below.

We grow pines for their structure, their speed, and their ecological weight in the Southeast, where native pines define whole landscapes. A mature pine shelters and feeds a great deal of wildlife, from seed-eating birds to the specialized life of the Southern pine woods, and the open canopy supports one of the richest ground floras in the region. Few evergreens give so much, so fast.

Give them full sun and room to grow, and choose the species to suit the soil and the scale of the site. Set them among our Conifers and Canopy Trees for the wider framework, and find the native kinds in our Southeastern Natives.