How Many Kinds of Evergreen Trees Are There?

Pine, eastern redcedar, and southern magnolia are just a few of the most familiar types of winter greenery that can be found in the Nashville landscape. Varied in size, shape, color, and features, all evergreens offer important ecosystem services during the coldest months of the year, such as wildlife habitat, air purification, and shade, when other trees have lost their leaves and gone dormant. Here, we’ll discuss what makes evergreens so durable and how they increase the resilience of the local environment.

Why Are Some Trees Green All Year?

Evergreen trees have adaptations that allow them to keep their foliage all year long, which in turn contributes to several ecosystem services in every season. In Nashville, common evergreen trees include those with needles (such as pine), those with flat or scaley foliage (including eastern redcedar and arborvitae), and some with broad leaves (like southern magnolia and holly).

These trees all have similar characteristics that allow them to stay green throughout the coldest months of the year:

• Antifreeze Properties: The wood of some evergreens, including pine trees, contains a thick, sticky substance called resin that gives those trees their particular scent. This carbon-rich fluid helps keep the tree from freezing while also offering some protection from pests and infections. Similarly, other kinds of evergreen trees contain carbohydrates that help insulate against freezing temperatures.

• Deep Roots: Many evergreens have deep roots that reach over a foot into the ground for moisture during periods of drought in both winter and summer. Accessing ground moisture provides these trees with more moisture than trees with shallower roots.

• Hardy Leaf Forms: Evergreens survive the winter season with their stiff and wavy leaves that prevent moisture loss in dry air. Their winter greenery allows year-long photosynthesis, which is supported by a slow, efficient use of nutrients in every month of the year. 

• Defenses Against Wildlife: Pointy needles, tough leaves, and thorns are adaptations various evergreen trees have developed to keep wildlife like deer from eating their greenery in wintertime when other food sources are scarce. These defensive adaptations also contribute to the safe cover that evergreens provide to birds and small mammals during cold months.

Conifer Evergreen Trees

Conifers are trees that produce cones rather than flowers. The male cones contain pollen that is spread by the wind to female cones, which then develop seeds. The strong, woody structure of a cone is the conifer’s strategy for release and capture during the wind-borne pollination process, as well as for protection until the seed is ready to be released (which may require certain conditions, such as warm temperatures, or in some cases, a forest fire).

Many evergreen trees are conifers, but not all conifers are evergreens. Some conifers, like the bald cypress and the larch, lose their foliage in autumn. The major evergreen conifers found in and around Nashville include:

• Pine

• Juniper, including redcedar

• Thuja, or arborvitae

Non-Conifer Evergreen Trees

Certain other types of trees also survive Nashville winters with their leaves intact. These trees include:

• Southern magnolia

• Holly

• Boxwood

• Cherry laurel

Southern magnolia, holly, boxwood, and cherry laurel all have firm, leathery leaves that are cold-hardy, and they have flowers in the springtime that are pollinated to produce seeds. The large, white flowers of the magnolia are very recognizable, whereas holly and boxwoods have small, discrete flowers. While the boxwood’s berries are also inconspicuous, the cherry-red berries of the holly tree are emblematic of wintertime, while the magnolia produces a cone-like structure that contains equally bright red seeds. In spring, cherry laurel trees have soft tufts of little white flowers, which produce small red berries that turn black by the fall.

What Are the Most Popular Evergreen Trees?

Some of the most widely planted evergreens in yards are planted for privacy and as weather buffers. Eastern redcedar, arborvitae, magnolia, holly, and cherry laurel trees all provide dense, vertical coverage and can be planted in rows to create privacy, reduce noise, and shield a house from the brunt of winter winds and snow. They’ll also block the bright, low-angle morning and evening sunlight when planted in front of east- and west-facing windows.

Which Are the Fastest-Growing Evergreen Trees?

The fastest-growing evergreens include the green giant arborvitae (taking on two to three feet per year) and the loblolly pine (which can take on more than two feet in a year). Other fast-growing evergreen trees, like the eastern red cedar and the southern magnolia, can grow up to two feet annually. 

Evergreen Trees and Winter Wildlife Habitat

Evergreen trees provide winter habitat for birds and small mammals, who find shelter and sometimes food in an evergreen species. The dense foliage covers wildlife from wind, rain, snow, cold temperatures, and predators, while cones on pines, spruces, and hemlocks (and berries on eastern red cedars and holly) offer nutritious energy sources. Insects and other small invertebrates also overwinter in evergreen trees, making a home among the branches, under bark, and in cavities in the wood.

Evergreens in Nashville’s Landscape

Evergreen trees fulfill important roles in the landscape in all seasons, especially during the cooler months when other trees have lost their leaves. A robust Nashville landscape will boast many types of evergreen trees across our neighborhoods, and there are plenty to choose from when planting a new specimen, such as a native loblolly pine, an ornamental deodar cedar, or a wall of arborvitae, to reinforce a property’s landscape with winter interest and year-long ecosystem services.

Check out the Nashville Tree Conservation Corps’ tree sale for a range of locally sourced evergreen and deciduous trees. Donate a tree for us to plant or volunteer with us to help plant and/or care for local trees! We appreciate financial donations of any size, the full amount of which goes to funding NTCC’s activities.

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