Does the state of Virginia sell bundles of seedlings for cheap like Texas and many other states?
The only place I know of that carries it is Mail Order Natives in the panhandle of Florida. Woodlander's in Aiken, South Carolina listed it in my 2004-2006 catalog - they don't list it on their website, but they always say to call or e-mail them, and they may have or might can get (from Nurseries Caroliniana, I think) plants that they don't list any more. Sometimes they're just temporarily out of them. Aiken, South Carolina seems pretty far north to me!
By the way, Spruce, p. echinata is supposed to occur here, but I don't know how I'd tell it from p. taeda/loblolly pine. Do you know any keys to identification of this tree?
Sherry

Easy to tell from Loblolly - the needles are about half the length. Also, they're generally around half in pairs, and half in threes, whereas Loblolly is fairly consistently in threes.

A bit more difficult to tell from Spruce Pine; that generally has darker green needles mostly in pairs (only the occasional threes), and cones with softer, less stiff scales.

Resin

Sherry, I think you and I are at the southern edge of it's range. I don't think I have ever seen one around here either, unless I've mistaken one for P.glabra.

I think you're right, Alabama. I only see long leaf, loblolly and spruce pines around here, although from what Resin said, I may have seen a short-leaf and thought it was a spruce pine.
Sherry

I've bought shortleaf pine from missouri state nursery. They have trees practically at dirt cheap prices.

Here is a link that might be useful: Missouri shortleaf pine

1kz:

Great, thanks for the reference. I see they also have the loblolly X pitch pine hybrid and some other interesting things.

Hugger:

Yes, I see you are in extreme southern Alabama--shortleaf pine is very widely distributed, but you may be just outside the range.

Sherry:

We are lucky to have resin here to help us with tree ID, as well as lots of other things. I don't know how I got started with my tree ID skills, but they are very non-specific. I recognize trees using a kind of gestalt-like impression, the way one might recognize the face of a friend. Now I am, if I may boast a bit, an extremely accurate tree identifier, often more correctly identifying trees than a forester I may be walking with. But if you ask me to cite specific features, I am often stuck, or can only focus on some easy ones. But, unfortunately, take me away from trees I have seen all my life, and I am not much good. I can use plant keys OK, but I am no expert.

Anyway, shortleaf pines around here are easy to identify because there is nothing else in the woods I could confuse them with. Those growing among the chestnut oaks around here have long straight trunks with usually very good form, with a relatively short and somewhat flattened crown. They are very "thrifty" or "clean" looking. Easy to distinguish from Virginia pine, which tends to have poor form, shorter needles, and generally look "messy." The exclusion of fire from the woods is leading to the elimination of shortleaf pine from the woods around here. It is favored by fire, which creates a good seedbed, and which fails to kill it while killing many of the competing species. Almost all of those I see are rather old and seem to be remnants from an older forest that grew under different conditions.

--Spruce

I'm on the border between shortleaf and loblolly country. To our west you'll see more shortleaf/va pine/loblolly forests and to the east you'll have more loblolly. Does anyone know how to tell apart really small examples...like the difference between a newly emerged shortleaf pine and a newly emerged loblolly pine.

I just found this old thread and thought I'd update it. I did find a few Shortleaf pines growing in Baldwin County, AL a few days ago. The bark is orange and has large plates similar to Slash Pine, but the needles are very short. The cones also tend to stay on the tree longer than other southern pines, and are small, about the size of an egg. I wish I could find a few seedlings myself, but it seems nobody sells them.

Hey Bama, the Arkansas forestry commission sells both improved and non improved shortleaf pine for CHEAP but are sold out currently and pick up must be in an AFC pick up location.

Have you looked into your state forestry dept. for availability?

I planted a few improved cherrybark oak this year as well as a couple of their blackgums. Some of the roots on the seedling blackgums were over 3' while the trunk/stem was around 1'. Pretty cool.

John (who can't tell the difference between loblolly and shortleaf)

This post was edited by j0nd03 on Thu, Dec 6, 12 at 15:48

Spruce, I know exactly what you mean by your identification methods. I can ID stuff at 55 mph quite easily usually, as long as, like you, I'm in territory where I know the common or even somewhat common denizens. But force me to go by small features and details.....things go downhill pretty quickly!

+oM

Grew up in north Louisiana which has both Shortleaf and Loblolly Pines. As mentioned the Loblolly has larger cones and longer needles generally than Shortleaf. It is reported
that there are hybrids of these two occuring naturally which can make delineation between the two very difficult. While I
can usually tell the two apart, I have run across trees that may have been some of these hybrids, and they were hard to differentiate from one another.

Tom,
You bring back memories of when I had a plant tax class many years ago of driving down the road and spotting plants that I did not already have in the collection that I had to make for the class. Even today I recognize species at a distance by shape, color, branching, and who knows what else. Taking that plant tax class was one of the best classes I have ever taken. Not so much for the identification aspect, though that is very helpful, but because it forced me to notice much mor of what was around me. I have REMARKABLE wild flowers in my area, most of which I had not noticed before taking that class. Would highly recommend that most everyone interested in gardening try to take a plant taxonomy course for this very reason alone.

Arktrees

Spruceman, while in SW VA, I spied a single, unusual pine amongst the Table mountain, Virginia & Pitch pines. It had warm, ocre-colored "plates" for trunk-bark instead of the usual corrigated blackish scales of the others. I decided it was a Shortleaf, but the only one I ever found in the general area.

Since I posted this topic I planted 50 shortleaf seedlings that I got from the VA state nursery--tiny little 1 year ones. We had a bad drought the next two years and I had to water them, but about half of them are now doing fine and are about 8 feet tall.

One good thing about them is that they sprout from the base if bitten off of destroyed by buck rubbing, but I am protecting a bunch with wire cages.

And I got some loblolly--pitch pine hybrids from the Missouri nursery--thanks for the tip about that source, 1kz.

Beng: the local forester here says that on good soils and with some competition to keep them growing upwards, table mountain pines make very nice timber-type trees. I did some searching and couldn't find any confirmatioon of this, and doubted the forester's word, but finally I found another source that confirmed what he said. No one offers table mountain pine seedligs in bulk, but in the past Forest Farm has had them. I might try a couple here.

Arktrees: Ah, yes, taxonomy class. I was a star in that class, but on the final exam--the field part--there was one guy that beat me for the top spot in class. I found out later that on one of the specimens, he got there first, and removed the terminal bud, which was key to the ID. The professor learned of this, but did not give anyone else credit and would not throw out the item. Not fair! I still remember that!! Hah!!

I am a bit north of the loblolly natural range, but I will try to get some seedlings from VA and see how they do. The ones at the VA Arboretum just about 15 or 20 miles SE do fine.

--Spruce

Spruceman, in VA I was near VA Tech, and being in the middle of Table mnt pine territory, they do some experimentation. In one clear-cut patch miles SW on the same ridge I was on (Jefferson National forest), they left occasional TM pine "seed trees". Yrs after, there were "dog-hair" stands of young TM pines surrounding the seed trees, out-competing even the chestnut oak stump sprouts. Later I read they were attempting to purposely re-establish the TM pine stands, w/some success.

I wish my old digital camera worked -- I could show a pic of my handsome open-grown 14' TM pine (bought 6 yrs ago from Forestfarm). Denser, darker green & more regular than VA pine. I have 2 more, seed-grown saplings. You might try (Shumacher?) seeds -- sprouting percentage was excellent.

My Loblolly-pitch hybrid shows hybrid vigor, and would be 25'+ if not for a weevil attack on the top leader.

I also have a Loblolly, but it does show some winter-burn and bud death (but recovers well). Surprisingly, it seems a bit more cold-affected than either Longleaf or Pond pine! With these southern pines, I've figured out NOT to water them from mid-summer on, as that slows down/stops any late growth which may suffer from winter-kill.

This is one of my favorite southern pines. They look amazing growing alone or spaced widely apart on a lawn. Some of the best specimens remind me of life-sized bonsais.

It's unfortunate that they aren't more widely available. You'd think they were just as easy to propagate and plant as the Loblolly pines that are commonly used by landscapers in this area.

Hello,

Interesting thread!

FYI The Maryland DNR Nursery has shortleaf pines this year. See link

http://www.easycartsecure.com/MarylandDepartmentofNaturalResources/Conifers.html

It has been a tough couple of years with our "droughty" summers the past 2 years for my 250+ Loblolly pines I have planted recently.

This year I also have had to spray for pine webworms and pine tip moths. Anyone else having these insect issues?

I'm gonna take a chance this year and plant 50 longleaf pines from NC State Nursery. Since traveling for work in Florida and Georgia I just can't get them (Longleafs) out of my head.

crazyoldgoose

Here is a link that might be useful: Md DNR Nursery - Conifers

***
crazyoldgoose says:

Since traveling for work in Florida and Georgia I just can't get them (Longleafs) out of my head.
***

Me too, when I visited my brother in Mobile, AL. So I got a half-dozen mail-order from a NE Alabama source. A few croaked, but 2 I gave away & 2 on my lot are doing well in mountainous w MD -- a 15 & 20 footer. -9F a few winters ago didn't bother them. Cold isn't the issue, but wet snow/ice is. Go for it, but realize that a major ice-storm could wreak them all (and maybe the Loblollies too).

I've seen no insect issues yet on Longleafs, but "budworms" can attack most any hard pine.

There's a reason why Short-Leaf begin to predominate the pine forest the further north one travels from north Louisiana. Ice storms are one of the reasons. Shortleaf pines survive them much better than Loblolly do. Planting a Longleaf way up north almost seems cruel and unusual punishment!

As for pests--I have had some problems with sawfly larvae. Two years ago I had them on three of my young white pines. I picked them off--it took three or four tries to get them all. On those trees they have not come back.

But this year, suddenly, they began to devastate my shortleafs. I tried picking them off, but after one or two tries, they became so numerous, I had to get a spray. The first one, some kind of organic insecticidal soap, killed a lot, but did not solve the problem. I then got another spray and after three more sprayings, I got the last of them. If I had done nothing, all of them would have been completely defoliated. There were literally thousands of these larvae, and they clustered in bunches of 20 or so as they ate all the needles off the twig ends.

I read that this problem is worse when the young trees are growing in a field, amid weeds and brush, as mine are. When these trees get big enough to resist buckrubbing damage, I will mow around them. For now it is good to keep them more or less hidden in the weeds and brush. Of course, I keep them from being shaded. And I have the best ones in wire cages for protection.

I also had a terrible problem with the sawflies on my Vanderwolf pine--a kind of white pine cultivar. They were all over this tree and would have completely defoliated it if I had not sprayed.

I also had some kind of fungus attacking the needles of my shortleaf pines, but it seems it did little harm. But in the spring before the new growth started, it looked serious. I will see what happens with that this next spring. I hope I will not have to spray for that also.

--Spruce