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Lodgepole pine

2 photos

Dirtsc / Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 3.0

Lodgepole pine

Pinus contorta

Lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) is really three trees under one name, and choosing it without knowing which one you mean is the commonest mistake made about it. Inland, as var. latifolia, it is the tall, extraordinarily slender Rocky Mountain lodgepole that grows in dense even-aged stands after fire - straight enough that Indigenous peoples used it for tipi poles, which is where the common name comes from. On the Pacific coast, as var. contorta, it is a low, crooked, wind-sculpted shore pine of dunes and bogs that may never exceed thirty feet; the epithet contorta describes that form, not the inland one. In the Sierra Nevada it is var. murrayana, somewhere between the two. Across all of them the species shares a willingness to grow where other conifers will not - nutrient-poor sand, acid bog margins, even the hot mineral ground around geyser basins - and a fire ecology built on cones that stay sealed until heat opens them. It is also the tree at the centre of the mountain pine beetle epidemic that has killed lodgepole across tens of millions of acres of western North America since the late 1990s.

Native: 11 US states

Climate fit: moderate (56/100)

Structure

Light

Full sun

Water

Moderate water

Mature size

40-75 ft tall · 20 ft apart

Hardy in zones

4a-8b

very cold to frosty winters

Native in Illinois

No

Related products

Cold hardiness

These values are location-based: this location's current hardiness is the baseline, and the 2050 value is a projected future climate for this same location.

Now

Zone 6b

Plotwright

USDA Zone 6b

-5°F to 0°F

Well-suited

2050

2100

Zone 7a

Plotwright

0°F to 5°F

Well-suited

In plain terms: This location has cold winters. Its winters are projected to keep warming through 2050.

✓

Well-suited today and still thriving in 2050.

Heat tolerance

Heat tolerance values are location-based too: heat days today are observed at this site, and the 2050 value projects this same location under a future climate.

Loading AHS heat-zone data for this location...

Where this plant fits

Suitable across 39 ecoregions - 31 climate-resilient through 2070 · 5 suited today · 3 newly possible by 2070. Best matches first.

Appalachian mixed mesophytic forests

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Appalachian-Blue Ridge forests

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Arizona Mountains forests

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Atlantic coastal pine barrens

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Blue Mountains forests

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Central Pacific Northwest coastal forests

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Central Tallgrass prairie

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Central-Southern Cascades Forests

What it needs

Conditions

Light

Full sun

Water

Moderate water

Spacing

20 ft

Habit

Habit depends entirely on variety, and the range is extreme. Inland Rocky Mountain trees (var. latifolia) are narrow columnar to conical, commonly 40 to 75 feet and occasionally over 100, on a very slender straight trunk with short branches - the dense pole stands are the characteristic form. Coastal shore pine (var. contorta) is a low, crooked, broad-crowned, wind-shaped tree often under 30 feet. The size given here describes the inland form; a coastal-sourced plant will be far smaller and much more picturesque.

Care tips

•

Find out which variety you are buying. Inland var. latifolia is a tall narrow pole; coastal var. contorta is a low crooked shore pine under thirty feet. They are sold under the same common name and they are not interchangeable.

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Give it full sun. Lodgepole is a fire-cycle pioneer with no shade tolerance - it will not fill in under an existing canopy.

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Do not prune a shore pine straight. The crooked wind-sculpted form is the whole ornamental value of the coastal variety, and pines will not resprout from old wood to undo the correction.

Lifecycle

Planting

Plant in spring in full sun, in well-drained soil of moderate moisture. The species is unusually indifferent to fertility - it establishes on nutrient-poor sand, thin mineral soil and acid bog margins - but it is not shade tolerant and will not develop under a canopy. Match the variety to the site: coastal shore pine for maritime exposure and salt spray, inland lodgepole for cold mountain conditions.

Transplanting

Moves well as young container stock in spring. Because habit varies so much by provenance, buy from a source that states the variety rather than trusting the label to mean the tall inland form.

Early growth

Fast early, then slowing. On the inland form the natural structure is a straight leader with short branching and needs no intervention; on coastal shore pine the crooked windswept form is the point and pruning it into symmetry destroys the reason to plant it.

Maturity

The dominant concern in western North America is mountain pine beetle. Beetles overwhelm crowded, mature, drought-stressed stands, and the epidemic since the late 1990s has been driven partly by warmer winters that no longer kill overwintering larvae. In a landscape planting, spacing and vigour are the practical defence; in a stand, age and density structure matter more than any treatment.

Propagation

From seed. Inland populations are largely serotinous - cones sealed with resin until heat opens them - so warm the cones to release the bond before extracting seed; coastal populations open more freely. Cold-stratify before sowing.

Native range

Native across 11 US states.

Native ecoregions

Naturally belongs in 20 ecoregions - its native range crosses a state or province each one spans (not necessarily this exact habitat).

Blue Mountains forests

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California coastal sage and chaparral

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Canadian Aspen forests and parklands

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Central Pacific Northwest coastal forests

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Central-Southern Cascades Forests

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Colorado Rockies forests

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Eastern Cascades forests

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Klamath-Siskiyou forests

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Mojave desert

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North Cascades conifer forests

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Climate notes

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Native across western North America from Yukon and the Northwest Territories south through British Columbia and the Rocky Mountains to California, Utah and Colorado, and into northwestern Mexico. POWO answered directly for this species, so the WGSRPD range here is Kew data taken at first hand, and it covers the species across all three varieties rather than any one of them.

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The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center record for this species describes the COASTAL variety specifically - it gives the distribution as "coast from northern Baja California in the south to Alaska in the north", habitat as low-elevation coastal, and notes tolerance of salt spray, high winds and sterile dune soils. That is var. contorta, the shore pine, and it is not the tree most people mean by lodgepole. Reading that page as the species is the easiest mistake to make here.

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Zone 4 to 8 for the species as generally published. Missouri Botanical Garden carries no species-level profile for Pinus contorta - only cultivar pages under var. latifolia - so unlike the rest of this batch there is no MBG zone rating to cite, and the figure should be treated as the broad species range across varieties rather than a single authority's number. Inland var. latifolia is the hardier end.

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Its site tolerance is the practical argument. Lodgepole grows on nutrient-poor soils, acidic bogs and even hot geyser-basin ground where other conifers fail, and it does not need fertility to establish. What it does need is light: it is a pioneer, not an understorey tree.

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Mountain pine beetle is not a footnote for this species. The outbreak that began in the late 1990s has killed lodgepole across tens of millions of acres of British Columbia and the western United States, driven by dense even-aged stands, drought stress and winters no longer cold enough to kill overwintering larvae. Any honest account of planting lodgepole in the West has to include it.

Similar plants

Browse lateral options with similar roles, light needs, size, or native-range overlap; these are not filtered for a better climate fit.

Prunus americana

American plum

A small native deciduous tree (or thicket-forming, suckering shrub) of eastern and central North America, grown for clouds of fragrant white 5-petaled flowers that open in March before the leaves and for the edible red plums that follow in early summer. It forms a broad, spreading crown with attractive dark reddish-brown twigs that sometimes carry thorny lateral branchlets. A documented larval host for swallowtails and other butterflies, with flowers of special value to native, bumble, and honey bees.

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Tree

Full sun / Part shade

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Pseudotsuga menziesii

Douglas fir

A very large Pacific Northwest conifer - 40 to 80 feet in cultivation but topping 300 feet in the wild - and one of the most important timber trees in North America. Unique forked, trident-shaped cone bracts that protrude between the scales distinguish it from every other conifer. Flat, spirally-arranged dark green needles are fragrant when bruised and leave raised circular scars on the twigs.

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Educator packet

Plant packet

Lodgepole pine educator packet

Lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) is really three trees under one name, and choosing it without knowing which one you mean is the commonest mistake made about it. Inland, as var. latifolia, it is the tall, extraordinarily slender Rocky Mountain lodgepole that grows in dense even-aged stands after fire - straight enough that Indigenous peoples used it for tipi poles, which is where the common name comes from. On the Pacific coast, as var. contorta, it is a low, crooked, wind-sculpted shore pine of dunes and bogs that may never exceed thirty feet; the epithet contorta describes that form, not the inland one. In the Sierra Nevada it is var. murrayana, somewhere between the two. Across all of them the species shares a willingness to grow where other conifers will not - nutrient-poor sand, acid bog margins, even the hot mineral ground around geyser basins - and a fire ecology built on cones that stay sealed until heat opens them. It is also the tree at the centre of the mountain pine beetle epidemic that has killed lodgepole across tens of millions of acres of western North America since the late 1990s.

Scientific name

Pinus contorta

Plant type

tree

Hardiness

4a-8b

Light

full-sun

Moisture

moderate

Spacing

240 inches