Native Plants

Q. Who is Mr. Smarty Plants?

A: There are those who suspect Wildflower Center volunteers are the culpable and capable culprits. Yet, others think staff members play some, albeit small, role. You can torture us with your plant questions, but we will never reveal the Green Guru's secret identity.

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Saturday - May 22, 2010

From: Wilmington, NC
Region: Southeast
Topic: Transplants, Trees
Title: Fast-growing tree for Wilmington NC
Answered by: Barbara Medford

QUESTION:

What kind of fast-growing tree would you plant in Wilmington, NC?

ANSWER:

This gardener, personally, would probably choose not to plant a fast-growing tree at all. Most fast-growing trees are short-lived, liable to breakage and often hosts to pests and diseases. We will go looking in our Native Plant Database for some trees native to the area around Hanover County, North Carolina that are reasonably fast-growing and well adapted to the environment. And please don't plant them now, as we enter Summer. Woody plants, especially trees, need to be planted in late Fall or very early Spring, when they are semi-dormant. Transplanting a tree in summer heat just invites transplant shock, which can easily impede a tree's development or actually kill it.

If you want to repeat the process, selecting other trees, go to our Recommended Species section, select North Carolina on the map, then "trees" for General Appearance and Narrow Your Search. You did not say what the growing conditions would be where you plant your tree, so you can do the search adding in specifications such as Soil Moisture and Light Requirements. Follow each link to our webpage on that plant to find out what is its projected size, whether it is evergreen and so forth.

Trees for Hanover County, North Carolina:

Acer rubrum (red maple)

Amelanchier canadensis (Canadian serviceberry)

Betula nigra (river birch)

Cercis canadensis (eastern redbud)

Juniperus virginiana (eastern redcedar)

Magnolia grandiflora (southern magnolia)

Platanus occidentalis (American sycamore)

Taxodium distichum (bald cypress)

From our Native Plant Image Gallery: