CTC Feature Tree

Feature Tree – December 2004
Scotch Pine

(click here for Tree of the Month archives)

Scotch Pine

Common Name: Scotch Pine
Scientific Name: Pinus sylvestris
Family: Pinaceae

This Tree in Colorado: A common landscape tree also frequently planted for windbreaks. Scotch pine is adaptable to a variety of soil types and can withstand somewhat basic soil (pH below 7.5) but prefers well drained slightly acidic soils. This tree grows in Colorado landscapes up to 8000’ elevation. Scotch pine is a very popular Christmas tree and accounts for nearly 30% of all trees grown for this use.

Growth Rate, Form and Size: A moderately slow growing evergreen reaching 50’ to 60’ with a spread of 25’ – 30’. A somewhat irregular, pyramid shape when young growing into a more open, round topped shape with age.

Landscape Value: A very interesting tree with needles that spiral nearly 360 degrees and an often contorted trunk which provides visual interest year-round. A large number of varieties and cultivars exist with size and needle color foremost among the variations. Dwarf cultivars and cultivars selected for a more bluish-green needles add to the potential sites and uses for this tree. This tree will tolerate somewhat dry soils and exposed sites but when stressed is susceptible to bark beetles, Zimmerman pine moth, pine tortoise scale and pine sawfly.

Zones: U.S.D.A. Zones 2 – 8 (frequently heat stressed in Zone 8).

Fruit: Cones mostly solitary to 2 – 3 together ranging from 1 ½” to 3” long, gray to brown and falling at maturity.

Foliage: Needles in bundles of two from 2 – 4” long, usually twisted and persistent for about 3 years. Leaf margins are minutely toothed, generally blue-green in color with parallel lines of stomata.

Bark: Frequently a very attractive characteristic: the bark is orange, thin and smooth on the upper trunk often peeling in papery flakes. The lower trunk tends toward orangish-brown to gray becoming fissured into longitudinal plats with maturity. The open form of the tree accentuates the attractive bark through the winter months.