These vary quite a bit in habit from one seedling to the next. Some grow tall and narrow, others short and wide. And like other trees and shrubs all plantings will be affected by the climate, soils and other site conditions of the planting site - including what kind of influence the planter has. Somebody in the same neighborhood could have one planted the same year grow twice as tall over the same period of time.

Since it's slow-growing, plan for a small tree 15'-35' tall. Old individuals in good spots can be much taller.

I saw some gorgeous specimens in zone 6 and zone 5 Massachusetts in the 35' to 40' tall by about 25' range. So, I'd guess in a long time yours could grow that large also. The current state record Oxydendron abroreum in Connecticut though is 48' tall by 39' wide.

Here in my zone 6 Kansas climate Sourwood trees don't grow much more than spindly little trees of about 10' to 15' at best. Mine is about 6 1/2' tall and is about 10 years old, having been bought as a 4' tree originally. They just hate our extended heat and I suspect our soil isn't acidic enough and maybe too clayey for them to be more happy.

I planted a sourwood last year too. Mine was about 12".

I had tried planting a bare root sourwood from arbor day
(about 3' tall) and both times it failed to leaf out.

So this time I planted a young rooted plant. It has survived
the winter and I am curious too about how much growth I
can expect this year.

My now 5 foot tall Sourwood seems to have grown no more taller, than it was when I first planted and staked it years ago.

I found my tree almost 5 years ago from, among some Sourwood shrub looking trees, which I think was started by seed, at the local nursery a couple years before that.

All this nursery's Sourwood trees looked like they had been left to grow naturally and not staked or trained. None of them had a strong straight main leader.

I picked the most promising looking one, took it home and planted it in a a higher elevated and well draining location of my yard where the tree could also extend it's roots several yards away where they could access lower elevated soil which remained moist longer due to that area sloping some.

The slightly lower area where the tree's roots had the option to extend its newly growing roots into, had originally been excavated to provide better drainage for the generous amounts of storm water runoff which flow through that part of our yard.

When I got my tree home, I had to force straight, the arching to the ground, more bush looking formed tree. Even this tree's main leader trunk was so curved to the ground that the only thing I could do was to pound into the ground a 7 foot tall Oak 1" x 1" post and tie the trunk to it.

Today, the tree still looks like it has not grown any taller. In fact the top 4 inches of the 5 foot tall main leader has never leafed out or shown any signs that it has grown at all.

Beneath those doemant top four inches, there currently is a nice structure of radiating side branches. These side branches are not quite 3 feet long, and each of the last 4 summers these side branches have flowered abundantly, and grown leaves which turn the most beautiful colors in the fall.

In fact, since almost 4 years ago when I planted a Persian Persica tree about 30 feet Northwest of my Sourwood tree; ever since in the Fall, the colors on my sourwood tree's leaves simply steal the show from my P P tree's fall leaf display.

The Sourwood is such a beautiful tree, but from my experience I can certainly determine that people are not kidding who write the reports listing that sourwood trees grow slowly.

Even thogu the trunk and branches on mine do appear to have developed stonger, but I still do not know when I should remove the stake. It would be nice to see some new top growth, for some clue as to whether or not that new growth would be strong enough to not need the present kind of staking.

Of course after almost 5 years, it might be long past due the time when I should have removed the post stake, and at the most switched to a better "T" stake system which should let the trunk receive enough pressure from winds to help the tree to strengthen better on it's own.

I really do not know. Growing this tree had definately been an experiement for me. Good thing the tree is so resiliant, because at least it has remained alive through several years of drought, several early spring, late freezes, and our more recent destructive week of freezing rain, which accumulated so much ice on some of my 12 foot tall loblolly trees that their main trunks broke 4 and 5 feet above ground. Also in that icing storm, two of my 30 year old Shumard oak trees expenrienced so much branch failure that now after corrective pruning the tree look very ugly. Still my little staked sourwood tree did not break at all, and again this year leafed out nicely.

Being a heath family tree and like so many in that group, characteristic of well-drained situations (rocky places, in this case) in the wild maybe yours has a chronic water mold infestation which is preventing the top from developing. Phytophthora and probably others are frequent banes of ornamentals in this family, often popping up in discussions of cultural issues.

bboy, Yuk that does not sound good.

The soil where the tree is planted is up hill like I mentioned earlier, but even though there is a lot of builders sand mixed into the top soil where the tree is planted, If I dig for much more than 2 feet down, the soil begins changing over to a heavy,dark black clay.

Maybe you are right. If so, and some root rot is keeping the tree from growing, I am amazed that the rest of the tree is staying alive and otherwise appearing to do so well.

I was thinking it was infested when purchased and therefore not shaking it off regardless of the conditions on the new site - assuming the sand that was dug in was in fact adequate to make the soil there sandy (it takes huge amounts to have this effect when existing soil is not already fairly high in sand).

Don't know anything specific about how water mold infestations are affected by infested stock being re-located to better drained sites but have gotten impression these may fairly often stay on the plants despite better conditions. And some heath family plants are adapted to extreme soil conditions, with more normal soils in gardens perhaps still not being suitable despite the growth of many other kinds of plants in them. A spot might still not drain well enough or be acidic enough with other kinds of plants growing there adequately. Many plantings of rhododendrons, heathers and azaleas in my region fail over time, the site conditions (including water molds) just not meeting their special needs.