Bigtooth aspen

Eastern Canadian Forest-Boreal transition

Eastern Great Lakes lowland forests

Northern Rockies conifer forests

Northern Tallgrass prairie

South Central Rockies forests

Wasatch and Uinta montane forests

Western Great Lakes forests

Central Tallgrass prairie

Central-Southern Cascades Forests

Appalachian mixed mesophytic forests

What it needs

Conditions

Light

Full sun

Water

Moderate water

Soil pH

Acid / Neutral

Acid is below pH 6.0, neutral 6.0 to 8.0, alkaline above 8.0.

Spacing

10 ft

Habit

Fast-growing, short-lived deciduous tree with a straight trunk and an oval crown, spreading by suckers from long, shallow lateral roots into clonal stands

Care tips

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Plant it in full sun only; it is very intolerant of shade and will not regenerate under its own canopy.

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Site it at least 39 feet from buildings, drains and paving, as Plants For A Future advises for poplars, and expect suckers to come up well away from the trunk.

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Mow or pull unwanted suckers; to keep a grove going instead, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center suggests removing older, damaged stems so new sprouts can fill in.

Lifecycle

Planting

Plant in full sun in a moist but well-aerated soil. Silvics of North America says it grows best on moist, fertile sandy uplands where the water table is no deeper than about 4.9 feet, and that good soil aeration is essential; FEIS says it grows on almost any soil, most often sands, down to a pH of about 4, and tolerates drier ground than quaking aspen. Plants For A Future prefers a deep, rich, well-drained, near-neutral soil and says growth is much poorer on wet, thin dry or poor acid soils. Keep it well away from buildings, drains and paving: Silvics and FEIS put the lateral spread of the roots at 33 to 66 feet in a forest, Silvics records suckers coming up more than 98 feet from the parent tree in open fields, and Plants For A Future warns that poplar roots can damage drains and, on clay, foundations, and should not be planted within 39 feet of a building.

Transplanting

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center suggests moving small suckers in the dormant season rather than larger trees. Trees and Shrubs Online, quoting Bean, says it is difficult to increase from cuttings and was usually grafted in Britain, though softwood cuttings root under mist.

Early growth

Give it full sun from the start. Silvics of North America and FEIS both class it as very intolerant of shade, and Plants For A Future says it is intolerant of root or branch competition, while Silvics notes that brush and weeds can easily kill first-year seedlings. Silvics adds that deer and hares can browse young stands heavily when their numbers are high. Growth is rapid: USDA PLANTS gives up to 40 feet in 20 years.

Maturity

FEIS and Silvics of North America give 60 to 80 feet tall and a trunk 8 to 10 inches across for forest-grown trees, and Silvics says the best sites grow trees to 98 feet in 50 to 60 years. The Flora of North America gives up to 115 feet, USDA PLANTS 65 feet, Plants For A Future 66 feet, and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center up to about 110 feet, often much shorter. None of the sources gives a crown width, so the spread shown here, 10 to 30 feet, is the Missouri Botanical Garden figure for its close relative quaking aspen, an approximation rather than a measurement. It is short-lived: FEIS says stands decline after 50 to 70 years on good sites, and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center calls it plagued by disease and insect problems. Silvics names Hypoxylon canker as the most serious disease of aspens, though bigtooth aspen is much more resistant to it than quaking aspen, with heart rot and Armillaria root rot in older trees; forest tent caterpillar and large aspen tortrix periodically strip the leaves, and the poplar borer is the worst wood borer. FEIS adds that it is a preferred host of the spongy moth (formerly gypsy moth).

Propagation

Silvics of North America says suckering is its usual way of spreading, that stem cuttings root poorly, and that root cuttings sucker well; the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center says aspens are best established from root cuttings set straight into their final place, or from small suckers lifted while dormant. Seed loses viability within days: Plants For A Future says to sow it as soon as it is ripe, and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center that fresh seed germinates readily on a saturated seed bed. Silvics says trees start flowering at about ten years old. Male and female flowers are on separate trees, so seed needs both, and Plants For A Future notes that poplars hybridise freely, so seed may not come true.

Native range

Native

Naturalized

Native across 25 US states + 6 CA provinces; naturalized in 1 US state.

Worldwide native range.

Native ecoregions

Naturally belongs in 16 ecoregions - its native range crosses a state or province each one spans (not necessarily this exact habitat).

Appalachian-Blue Ridge forests

Atlantic coastal pine barrens

Canadian Aspen forests and parklands

Central Tallgrass prairie

Eastern Canadian Forest-Boreal transition

Eastern Great Lakes lowland forests

Gulf of St. Lawrence lowland forests

Mississippi lowland forests

Northeastern Coastal Forests

Boxelder (Acer negundo) is the maple that does not look like a maple. Instead of a single lobed leaf it carries compound leaves of three to five toothed leaflets, close enough to poison ivy that people regularly misidentify young shoots, and it is one of the very few dioecious maples - male and female flowers on separate trees, so only the females carry the familiar paired samaras. It is native across an extraordinary sweep of North America, from Maine to Manitoba and south to Florida, Texas and central Mexico, and it is genuinely at home on riverbanks and floodplains where its speed and flood tolerance are assets. In a garden it is usually a volunteer rather than a choice. It grows fast, breaks in storms, seeds everywhere, and hosts the boxelder bug, which overwinters on house walls in numbers that make it a household nuisance rather than a garden one. The case for it is narrow but real: it establishes on ground where better trees fail, in cold northern climates and on raw disturbed sites, and it is a documented larval host for cecropia and a valued early honey-bee forage.

Climate notes

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Plants For A Future lists it for USDA hardiness zones 2 to 5, the only zone statement found: NC State Extension has no page for it, and no Missouri Botanical Garden page for it was found. USDA PLANTS gives a minimum temperature of -43°F, and Silvics of North America records -51°F at its northern limit, with January means from -0°F in the north to 36°F in the south and summer highs above 100°F throughout its range. Its native range reaches Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and the North Carolina mountains, warmer than zone 5, so the warm end of this zone range is narrower than the wild range.

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The native range here is taken from Kew's World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP), the dataset POWO publishes: southeastern Canada from Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick through Quebec and southern Ontario to southeastern Manitoba, and the eastern United States from Maine south to Delaware, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Virginia and West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina, and west through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin to Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri. The Flora of North America lists the same provinces and states, and Silvics of North America says it is local in western North Carolina and northwestern Tennessee. FEIS and Wikipedia also include South Carolina, where FEIS records disjunct populations, so the state list here includes it. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center's state list adds North Dakota and British Columbia, which neither WCVP nor the Flora of North America records, so the state list here leaves them out.

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The Flora of North America describes dry to moist upland woods and forests, from sea level to 3,281 feet; Silvics of North America says it is most abundant on floodplains and lower upland slopes at 492 to 2,001 feet, and has been found above 3,002 feet in North Carolina. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and the Flora of North America describe it as a pioneer after fire, logging and on abandoned fields, regenerating by root suckers.

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WCVP records it as introduced only in Austria, where Plants For A Future says it is extensively planted for timber; Trees and Shrubs Online says it is exceedingly rare in Britain and does not thrive there. None of the sources here calls it invasive, and Plants For A Future rates its weed potential as no, but within a garden its suckers can spread widely and form thickets.

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Sources differ on when it flowers. Plants For A Future gives March, the Flora of North America March to May, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center April, and FEIS April or May; Silvics of North America says late April in southern Ontario, late April to early May in southeastern Michigan, and early to mid May in northern Michigan and Minnesota, about ten days after quaking aspen, with the seed shed about four weeks later.

Plant this, not that

Better fit for this place

For Chicago, IL, these are replacement suggestions: similar plants with a stronger hardiness fit now and/or in 2050.

Acer negundo

Boxelder

Better fit now and in 2050

Now: well-suited

2050: well-suited

Celtis occidentalis

Common hackberry

A tough, widely adaptable native shade tree of central and northeastern North America, growing 40 to 60 feet tall and wide with a rounded, spreading crown. Mature gray bark develops the warty corky ridges that make it instantly recognizable, and the round purple drupes are edible and feed dozens of bird species. One of the most pollution- and stress-tolerant street and shade trees available - it shrugs off wind, urban conditions, and wet, dry, or poor soils alike.

The largest native cherry of eastern North America - a medium-to-large deciduous shade tree that hangs elongated racemes of small white flowers in spring, then ripens drooping strings of pea-sized fruit from red to near-black in late summer. The fragrant white bloom feeds bees while the fruit is eaten by 33 species of birds and many mammals; it is also a workhorse larval host, supporting the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail and a string of giant silk and sphinx moths. Every part except the ripe fruit is cyanide-bearing and toxic.

Better fit now and in 2050

Now: well-suited

2050: well-suited

Prunus serotina

Black cherry

A small-to-medium understory tree of dry, rocky eastern-North-American woods, named for its drooping clusters of papery, sac-like seed pods that resemble the fruit of hops. The birch-like, sharply-serrated leaves turn an undistinguished yellow in fall, and reddish-brown male catkins persist on the bare branches through winter. Also called ironwood for its extremely hard, dense wood; tough, low-maintenance, and drought-tolerant once established.

Better fit now and in 2050

Now: well-suited

2050: well-suited

Ostrya virginiana

American hophornbeam

A dense, conical-to-narrow-pyramidal evergreen tree native to eastern and central North America, prized as a screening and foundation conifer. Flat, fan-like sprays of scale-like, aromatic yellow-green foliage clothe the tree from the ground up, and red-brown bark exfoliates on mature trunks. Wild trees can reach 40 to 60 feet but cultivated plants typically stay near 20 to 30 feet; small urn-shaped cones and dense evergreen cover make it valuable food and shelter for birds.

Better fit now and in 2050

Now: well-suited

2050: well-suited

Similar plants

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

Thuja occidentalis

American arborvitae

A medium-to-large native shade tree of central and eastern North America, reaching 50 to 80 feet with an ovate-rounded crown and large, asymmetric heart-shaped leaves. In June it carries pale-yellow, intensely fragrant flowers on pendulous cymes - each cluster hung from a distinctive strap-like leafy bract - that ripen into pea-sized nutlets. The fragrant June bloom is a premier nectar source: Missouri Botanical Garden lists it as attracting bees and butterflies, and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center flags it as having special value to both native and honey bees.

The native beech of eastern North America, from Nova Scotia and southern Ontario south to northern Florida and eastern Texas: a large, slow-growing, long-lived forest tree with smooth, light grey bark, a dense crown, golden-bronze fall colour and small, sweet, three-sided beechnuts that feed a long list of wildlife. Check its health in your area before planting. Wikipedia reports that beech bark disease has become a major killer of beech in the northeastern US, and that beech leaf disease, caused by a nematode, was found in Ohio in 2012 and had spread as far south as Virginia by 2022, severely damaging American beech. Its shallow roots and dense shade also leave little room for anything beneath it.

The only native U.S. holly with both spiny green leaves and bright red berries - an upright, pyramidal, broadleaf evergreen tree that slowly matures to 15 to 30 feet in cultivation (to 50 feet in the wild). Thick, leathery, deep green leaves bear spiny marginal teeth, and pollinated female trees carry showy red-to-orange drupes that ripen in fall and persist through winter as bird food. This is the classic "Christmas holly" of wreaths and decorations.

A small-to-medium understory tree of dry, rocky eastern-North-American woods, named for its drooping clusters of papery, sac-like seed pods that resemble the fruit of hops. The birch-like, sharply-serrated leaves turn an undistinguished yellow in fall, and reddish-brown male catkins persist on the bare branches through winter. Also called ironwood for its extremely hard, dense wood; tough, low-maintenance, and drought-tolerant once established.

A tough, medium-sized native tree of the eastern and midwestern United States, grown as much for its showy edible orange fruit as for its distinctive thick, dark gray bark broken into rectangular blocks. Small urn-shaped white-to-greenish-yellow flowers open in May and June, and the sweet fruit ripens after frost. Largely dioecious - a female tree needs a male pollinizer nearby to set fruit - and notably drought- and walnut-tolerant once established.