| Pinus rigida is a large evergreen conifer, reaching 40 to 60 feet in height, 30 to 50 feet in spread. The needles are in threes, yellow-green to dark green. Growth habit is open and pyramidal, as it ages it becomes more gnarled and irregular. Bark of this species is very dark and scaly in youth, getting thicker with smoother, brown-yellow, and platey with age. Cones are 3 to 4 inches long, usually in groups of 3 to 5. Prefers light, sandy, acid soils but is also found in peat swamps along the Atlantic coast. Salt tolerant. Excellent for poor soils, semi wild spaces. Native to eastern North America.
Pines are one of the most diverse groups of evergreen conifers, over 90 species are distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere.
Although most are large trees, they can take a low growing shrub form. Pines have been very important commercially, in timber production, as well as a variety of other manufactured products such as turpentine and rosin. They tend to be more tolerant of varying soil types and urban environments than either Picea or Abies. Pines tend to develop tap roots, so one should not attempt to transplant them from the wild. All species are grown from seed, with highly variable seed stratification requirements. They can be subject to many diseases, such as damping off, root rot, dieback, blister rust, canker, blight, scale, pine needle miner, pine weevil, bark beetles and pinewood nematode. Well situated plants should be relatively trouble free.
They suffer salt damage along highways and can get tip burn in areas of high sulfur dioxide or ozone.
In general they do not require fertilization, which can cause overgrowth. |
