Dawn redwood is very fast.....survived hurricane force winds here over 100mph wind gusts

Lives several hundred years

Bald cypress and white pine I wouldn't call "fast". Fast for a tree is usually considered multiple feet per year, as with poplars and eucalypts for instance.

The fast growth, short life rule tends to hold true for all broadleaves - conifers though, do not fit neatly into that clear-cut category so suspect they will yield the best chance of success. I don't know much about the timber qualities of Paulownias...but they definitely fir into the fast growing category

One question is "how fast is fast". Personally I tend to see any growth rate of a foot or more a year when young or without supplemental watering as fast. But I'm a pessimist.

Q.pagoda and Q.phellos

Q.alba has actually grown fast for me, but I realize that's not the case everywhere.

I second Metasequoia.

The Coast redwood and Sequoia also.

Aren't Douglas Firs 200 foot forest trees out west also? How fast do they grow out there?

How strong is the wood of pin oak? Oak trees tend to be fairly fast-growing, with the red oak group having a rep. for being a bit faster-growing than white oak. Might well be a good overall choice. Some oaks can clear 400 years of life; that's not bad!

Richard.

Bur oak, Q.macrocarpa, has consistently been among the fastest-growing trees I've planted over the past 25 years. I anticipate that, barring human intervention, those I've planted will be here 200 years or more after I'm gone.

The fastest trees here would be cultivars of Silver Maple like 'Silver Queen' that have improved branching and Honeylocust. On farmsteads they are some of the longest-lived trees and can take an incredible amount of harsh conditions. Both never cease to amaze me when I'm on a harsh, windy site and see them growing very well. Can't stand the trees but they're tough! Also, Autumn Fantasy Maple (Freeman Hybrid) is an extremely fast growing shade tree that can put on up to 4' of growth a year here in Iowa.

After establishment many trees would fit into the fast category- most members of the red oak group, selected Sugar Maple/Red Maple cultivars, most of the new elm cultivars, hybrids within the white oak group, and river birch. Also, given proper soil fertility, I think Carya/Juglans species will put on 2-3 foot of growth even out in the open so long as they are planted when young.

Difficult part is that there is no hard and fast rule to trees and of course a lot depends on variables out of our control. We've had two 70mph wind events roll through our little town over the last 7 years and there was no discernible reason some of the trees toppled and others didn't.

I'll say the ones from the "fast growing" group I don't recommend here in Iowa are most Populus and Salix species. For some reason more and more Populus tremuloides are showing up in landscapes here and almost all will succumb to disease or other issues in around 20 years or so.

Chinese elm (not Siberian), honeylocust, Japanese larch, dawn redwood, sycamore and shumard x nuttall oak are "fast" on my lot and have at least fairly strong wood. Burr oak is fairly fast & ditto for Black walnut when in good soil.

Southern Sugar Maple (A.barbatum) has been fast growing for me, and seems to be strong wooded, but I can't say for sure if it's long lived because they're really not all that common.

Overcup oak (Q.lyrata) and Shumard oak (Q.shumardii) have been planted in a local park and both of those seem to have filled in fairly quickly. From my own experience Swamp Chestnut Oak (Q.michauxii) has also been fast growing.

And let's not forget China Fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata), there are old trees here that stood up to recent hurricanes without any damage, and they are said to be fast growing.

And for the pines, here in the Deep South I'd have to say Longleaf pine (P.palustris) is the longest lived, most drought tolerant, and least bothered by beetles. Once they are through the 'grass stage' they grow just as fast as any other pine. In the upper South I'm guessing Shortleaf pine (P.echinata) is probably the longest lived.

Lucky, I've heard you mention Bur Oak and Ginkgo as being "fast" trees, which is not the case up here. Beautiful specimens of both can be found this far north, but fast they are not. I'm envious.

Trees seem to grow in fits and starts - like most living things really (nothing like stating the obvious). My seedlings take absolutely forever, even after going in the ground...then they have a sort of manic adolescent spurt between 7-15 or so, then slow down to about half their adolescent growth (which is pretty much as far as I have personally witnessed with a very small sample). I think growth rates settle down a bit until the latter stages of life when it gets very slow indeed...unless its a yew when it throws a whole bunch of daughters at top speed. I watched the daughter reproduction in an old churchyard yew and was truly astonished at the speed of a whole new grove appearing in just a few years. Loads faster than a row of new seedlings. Interestingly (to me) the rates of death seem to correlate to growth rates as well - birch, for instance, are there, then gone, almost overnight and poplars are quick to keel over...while oaks can linger almost to immortality. (although only with aged trees, not caused prematurely from disease).

Of course. this is just my uneducated observations and I may be talking out of my arse as per.

Bur oak has grown slowly for me, I have one planted the same year as a White oak (about 7 years ago), both direct seeded, and the White oak is now 3x bigger.

Just as a very general statement, that bit about fast growers being fast dyers falls down badly when it comes to conifers. With respect to Camp, who posited this above already-and I myself have many a time in the past-such species as redwood, white pine, red pine,Norway spruce, dawn redwood,.........and a whole bunch more, are all capable of multiple feet per year height increment and all are capable of living lifespans measured in centuries. That "rule of thumb" simply does not apply to these trees.

And in my part of the world, all those coniferous species I just mentioned would indeed be considered fast growers. No, perhaps not as fast as willows or cottonwoods. But one to several feet in a year is fast growth in my book, and these all easily obtain that. Heck, I had 4 ft. + of new growth on a bunch of my Norway spruce last year and the year before! That's moving, and these are receiving zero care, completely on their own.

edited to add: I have no idea how one would spell the word I tried to write up above, the one I spelled as "dyers". I know that's not right, and I surely wasn't trying to conjure up the image of folks who dye fabrics for a living! Maybe there is no such word as what I was reaching for. In any case, evidently "dyers" as used in this context is not a word! Ya'll know what I meant anyway........right?

Dier? Checked in dictionary - one who dies - but yep, it looks wrong.

But when it comes to pine, at least scots pine, it's not the same individuals that grows fast and getting old. In good conditions they grow fast, but are getting week wooded and fragile. Only when they grow in the worst kind of poor, dry soil or in virtually no soil at all on some cliff they get 500+ years old. Slow growth make the wood dense and full of resin, and that's what keeping them alive.

Well, it's more than just that, Hug. Take coast redwoods: When looking up at a 360 ft. tree, I doubt any of us would say it lasted so long due to poor soil! There's some truth in what you said, but it's grossly oversimplified. White pine, right here in my own state-on soil that is good for white pine, which will tend towards being sandy-can and do last up to 500 years. This has nothing whatever to do with their being cliff dwellers or some such. I'm talking regular, good, mesic sites.

I would not place Scots pine in the "very long-lived" group here in N. America though, but that's due to some disease issues they fall prey to here, not their genetic potential. I'll bet that in their Russian or N. European homeland, they can go a long time too.

Oh, surely climate has a role - we can see good and bad summers in the annual rings...and those growing in a cooling period have dense tight annular growth.

Sadly, Scots pine are having a torrid time of it here in the UK with fungal issues.

White pine come close to being the holy grail of a fast growing, loved lived tree, and are resistant to the diseases and insects that afflict other pines in my area. The catch is, they are somewhat weak wooded, and they are a problematic tree for suburbia. If you see them in the forest, they kind of screen each other from the wind. They also lose all their lower limbs. In suburbia, they get huge (an inevitable outcome for anything that grows fast and lives a long time) and start to drop lower limbs in storms and property owners get nervous.

I've lamented how all the Austrian Pine in my parent's neighborhood were killed by disease.

How is the longevity of pitch pine?

I don't know much about pitch pine Ed. But thinking about that name....hmmm...pitch huh? Sounds to me like a species that puts much energy into producing protective compounds........like pitch! Could be wrong, but if I had to guess...