PlantFiles: Italian Stone Pine, Umbrella Pine, Parasol Pine, Pignolia Nut Pine
Pinus pinea

My brother got this plant as a little Christmas tree over 10 years ago. Unsure of its hardiness, decided to give it a go and plant it outside anyway (Zone 7a, Ewing NJ). While it tends to suffer significant foliage damage when temperatures fall below 15F, the plant has not only grown but thrived (the stems are apparently hardy to significantly colder temperatures... at least 0F). If not for pruning, it would likely be 15-20 feet tall by now (pruning due to proximity to the house has kept it to about 5 feet tall after it started out about 1 foot tall). Have seen a larger specimen (~12 feet tall) in the neighborhood, fully exposed to the elements, and apparently surviving well despite the cold winters. Aside from the browning foliage by winter's end, not a bad choice.

After 5 years in my home, I just learned this morning what I thought was a Monterey Pine in my back yard is actually a Stone Pine. An arborist came to give me a quote to remove a broken branch which he said was a very common occurance for this tree. When temperatures get very hot, (plus we had record rains this year) the tree absorbs alot of water and the branches become too heavy to support their own weight and rip themselves off. Not completely mind you, just enough to hang precariously and need to be professionally removed.

My Pinus pinea is probably 70+ years old and aprox 80 feet tall with an umbrella span of 70 feet and trunk diameter of 6 feet. It is a beautiful tree and I love the shade and the sound of the branches when they sway in the wind but the reason I rated it neutral is that it is a BIG fat mess! Between raining buckets of pollen for a month in April and a million needles dropping 5 months out of the year, when the cones ripen (I just learned every 36 months) the tree becomes party central for every squirrel within a mile of my house. They bite off (and drop) all of the petals of the cones to get to the pine nuts and then bomb my yard with the partially eaten cones. I am constantly sweeping my deck and raking needles out of my nicely landscaped yard not to mention dodging dropping cones.

And, if the mess was not enough, the arborist also highly recommended that I thin the umbrella of my mature tree every 4-5 years to the tune of $3,500. So if you are considering planting a Stone Pine and plan to be in your home for a long, long time, be forewarned ;-)

It can take a lot of water but it does not like wet feet. I bought a couple dozen of these on sale after Christmas about two and a half years ago, and planted most of them out in two long rows, spaced about ten feet apart; those I didn't plant died in their pots within a few months. Then came the hurricanes, some health problems for me, and a lot of neglect... Yet most of them have pulled through and are growing. There are a lot of dead "candles" that have been replaced by side shoots, but the trees on the better-drained spots (I have a clay-sand mix of soil here, high in phosphate but no other nutrient), despite competition from wild blackberry, saltbush, and various other weeds, have been growing slowly and steadily. I'm going to try to take better care of them, keep down the competition, fertilize a bit. Pine nuts are probably out of the question unless they survive me by decades: I'm told they don't bear when young.

I also bought them around Christmas. Have four planted in full sun, at our property in east Texas, zone 8a. Very drought tolerant. Relatively slow grower, but also low maintenance.

Hi! A few years ago I did holidays in northern Italy and brought back a little p.pinea with my car and planted it out in the garden. A bit slow growing here, but its hardy enough without protection in a safer place in the garden (near house).

In the last years I saw lots of this p.pinea here. Mostly they are not easy to detect cause the normal pinus-trees here (p.sylvestris) look nearly the same in the first 10-15 years. But, I saw dozens of even elder trees and down to -10/-15 C it's no problem with them.

We got our stone pine at Christmas from a grocery store. It was in a gallon container and very healthy. After planting it has continued to grow and increase in width. It is now over 5' tall and is just beginning to show signs of spring growth.

The candles are usually about 9 - 12" long and the needles are fairly long too. It sheds about a third of its needles every year.

So far no cones, but hope springs eternal. This tree is fertilized regularly with evergreen tree stakes and gets a lot of water.

It would seem that the Italian stone pine is capable of growing a bit out of its normal range once it gets established. We are in 7b but sometimes get exceptionally cold weather for a few days every winter.

I purchased this plant at the grocery store at Christmas time where it was being sold as a "live" Christmas tree. I transplanted the small tree into a larger pot shortly after the holidays and it has been growing well since. I cannot plant it outdoors since I live in a cold climate, zone 5 bordering on zone 4.

I am uncertain as to whether or not mine is a true Pinus species due to the growth habit, namely the formation of the single needles that sprout directly from the branches. All other species of Pinus that I am aware of have needles in various numbers that sprout from buds forming on new growth commonly referred to as "candles" that occur once a year in the spring. The needles on this plant grow directly from the branches that continue to grow year round. The growth pattern more closely resembles Juniperus than Pinus.

We planted two of these trees in our garden in Australia nearly ten years ago, and they have thrived and are now 6 to 8 metres tall. We have been looking forward to harvesting our own pine-nuts, and this year one tree grew two large cones. We have an unusual problem, however. Yellow-tailed black cockatoos are common in this area and have learned over the years to feed on the cones of the Monterey Pine (Pinus radiata) which is grown extensively in plantations in this area.

Last Sunday, I noticed the debris of two large pine cones on the ground beside the tree and sure enough, the cockatoos had got there before us. They not only tore apart the cones very thoroughly to extract the seeds, but each seed has a hard shell around the kernel and each of these was neatly split open and the kernel extracted.

My wife and I searched through the remnants and did find four seeds still intact. We split these and ate two pine kernels each and they were lovely, but with the beautiful cockatoos frequenting the garden, we may be somewhat limited in the pine-nut harvest that we can make!

This is commonly sold in stores during December to be used as a Christmas gift plant, and when sold are usually about 18" tall.

When I observed my neighbor plant these out in her front yard about 5 years ago, I scoffed, because usually some holiday plant purchased will not do that well when transplanted. Five years later it is now about 15 feet tall. It is quite healthy and growing happily with NO care.

Native to southern Europe and Turkey. Very drought tolerant, and a very ornamental outdoors tree. Its rate of growth is moderate, reaching 10-15 in height at five years of age, and eventually can reach to 40 feet tall. Deep root system, and its principal pests are the aphid and bark aphid.