If you don’t know what Norfolk Island pines are by name, I bet you know what these plants look like. They’re commonly sold around November or December as miniature living Christmas trees.

They look a bit like fuzzy little pine or fir trees, and they’re terrific cheery additions to the home during the holiday season. I was first introduced to these plants in Christmas 1989 when I was a kid and my grandmother had two in her Florida home to help deck the halls. After the holiday season, they were planted in the front yard.

I remember they grew very quickly – they were little saplings at about a foot tall each when they were planted and within a couple of years, they were standing a good four feet tall. I know because I was around 10 or 11 years old, and they were coming up to my chest by that point. The house was sold by the time I was turning 13 and I never really got to see how tall these little Norfolk Island pines became. But when my family and I drove by the house a few months after the sale, the former Christmas trees were gone. Huh.

By this point I had come to recognize what Norfolk Island pines were, because I noticed they were sold every holiday season in grocery stores and such. I wanted to buy one and see if I could grow it, but my parents couldn’t really afford to buy them at the time. After spending $25 or $30 on fresh-cut Christmas trees each year in the mid-1990s, it was an extra expense during a very tight time of the year.

My dad, who worked at a local theme park, brought one home in the late ‘90s from surplus during the holidays. I wanted to grow it in the yard, but there was just one problem: we were renting and couldn’t plant trees in the yard. The little tree survived in a pot on the back porch for a few months into the new year but dried out during the hot summer in Central Florida and that was that.

Planting a Norfolk Island Pine in My Yard

As the years went by, I got to the point in my 30s where I could afford to buy my own Norfolk Island pines during the holidays. I had half a mind to plant them in the yard as a tree in my own yard. But I also had come to know just how tall Norfolk Island pines get, especially when they’re planted in the warm climes of Central Florida. They’re a common sight around my home in the Tampa Bay Area, and they seem to be almost everywhere in South Florida.

Know what else is a common sight? People cutting down their Norfolk Island pines – especially the really tall ones. This made me wonder why. Why are people cutting down their Norfolk Island pines? Is there something inherently wrong with planting these trees in the yard? Is it safe to plant Norfolk Island pines in the yard?

Out of curiosity, I planted a Norfolk Island pine in the backyard – a south-facing spread of land with little shade and sandy soil. The sandy, sunny conditions were probably ideal for the little plant, though it ended up expiring during an unusually dry, hot summer when a lot of my plants were killed off despite watering them every morning.

Turns out I may have lucked out… I did some research on Norfolk Island pines and learned that maybe they aren’t best suited for a Central Florida yard after all – and they may not be a good idea in your yard, either.

I reached out to Tia Silvasy, a residential horticulture and master gardener volunteer coordinator at the Hillsborough County extension of the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS), to find out more about growing Norfolk Island pines in the yard. What she told me made me rethink growing these distinctive Christmas trees in the landscape.

Are These Good Trees For The Landscape?

“Norfolk Island pines are not native to Florida, they are native to Norfolk Island in Australia,” Silvasy explains. “They do well in USDA Plant Hardiness zones 10a to 11.” I should add here that my yard is in USDA Plant Hardiness zone 9b, so my yard’s Central Florida climate is really not all that suitable for Norfolk Island pines. And now I see why they seem to be so prevalent in warmer, more tropical South Florida.

Silvasy goes on to say that Norfolk Island pines can grow up to 80 feet tall in Florida. “In Australia, they grow up to 200′ tall,” she adds. “They are ok to grow here [in Central Florida], although some people think they look out of place in the landscape, as they grow larger than many other species here.”

And she’s totally right. They’re easy to spot in Central Florida yards because they pop up above most surrounding neighborhood tree lines. The Norfolk Island pines in my neighborhood are among the tallest trees amid a canopy of oaks and sycamores. Their closest rivals height-wise around my neck of the woods are loblolly and slash pines.

Are Norfolk Island Pines Safe to Grow?

I really wanted to get an answer to this question, especially as two of my neighbors had just recently cut down their Norfolk Island pines, and I wanted to know if these tall Christmas trees are safe to have near the house. After all, Central Florida is prone to high winds from bypassing tropical storms and hurricanes.

Silvasy cautions that these trees have a shallow root system and therefore can easily uproot in a hurricane. “Since Norfolk Island pine trees are very tall, they are subject to breakage in high winds,” Silvasy remarks. “It’s best to give them plenty of room to grow and not plant them by your driveway or house or any other area they may fall to cause damage. After a storm, Norfolk Island pines can recover by growing new leaves and new branches at the breakage point. You can see this photo documentary showing recovery of Norfolk Island pines after Hurricane Charley.”

Silvasy says anybody who wants to grow Norfolk Island pines in their yard should make sure they have enough room before planting trees like this, especially given their mature height of about 80 feet in Florida. “[They] can survive in a container for many years, so we recommend keeping your tree around and using them again for the next holiday.”