While most of our content is about removing and maintaining trees, sometimes people ask about what they could put in their place.
You should always research the specific conditions of your property, including the sun it gets, the soil, and variables like nearby road salt during the winter or how much maintenance you want to have. But you really can’t go wrong by looking into the legacy of native trees in the Hudson Valley.
The following list are some of the most interesting native species that you can plant in your yard, based on the climate of the Hudson Valley.
1. White Oak (Quercus alba)
This is a large shade tree that can reach about 50–80 feet tall with a spread of 50–80 feet. It thrives in full sun, and prefers rich, moist, well-drained loam but adapts to a range of acidic soils. Its durable wood was prized for shipbuilding and whiskey barrels in colonial times, while Native tribes used the acorns as a food source.
2. Black Oak (Quercus velutina)
This medium-large oak can hit 50–60 feet tall, and can spread 60–70 feet wide at maturity. It can live over 150 years, so you’ll be leaving behind quite a legacy no matter when you plant it.
Black oak trees prefer full sun and well-drained soils, and can tolerate dry, sandy or rocky upland soils. Its inner bark yields “quercitron”, a yellow dye that was once exported to Europe (popular in the 18th–19th century for coloring textiles).
3. Red Maple (Acer rubrum)
This is a moderate to large-size tree, typically getting to 40–60 feet tall with a rounded crown. Common and widespread, red maple wasn’t heavily targeted by early settlers (its wood is softer than sugar maple). However, its brilliant fall foliage made it a beloved tree, a motif in Hudson River School paintings each autumn.
4. Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum)
These are large canopy trees, that can range from 60–75 feet. They grow best in full sun to light shade, prefering moist, well-drained, fertile soils (loam or silt) but can manage on rocky slopes. They do not tolerate waterlogged soil or salt.
As a native tree, you can’t do much better than being the official State Tree of New York. Native Americans taught early colonists how to tap these trees each spring for maple sap. Maple sugaring became a major Hudson Valley tradition in the 1700s and remains a celebrated local industry today. The wood (“rock maple”) is strong and was used for everything from furniture and flooring to bowling pins. And of course, each October the sugar maple’s brilliant orange-red foliage lights up the Valley’s forests.
5. Shagbark Hickory (Carya ovata)
These are tall, distinctive hardwoods that can reach 60–80 feet in height at maturity. They can live close to 200 years, and are name for shaggy bark that peels in long strips on mature trees.
Hickory nuts are large, sweet, and highly nutritious, a feast for wildlife like squirrels, chipmunks, black bears, foxes, turkeys, woodpeckers and more. Hickory wood is incredibly hard and was valued by settlers for tool handles, wagon wheels, and even early baseball bats. The tree’s toughness even inspired Andrew Jackson’s nickname “Old Hickory.” Despite its useful wood, shagbark hickory’s slow growth and difficulty in transplanting mean it’s rarely planted in modern landscaping, making existing old hickories on Hudson Valley homesteads all the more treasured.
6. Common Serviceberry (Amelanchier arborea)
This is an ornamental tree or large shrub, typically between 15 to 25 feet tall with a spread of around 15 feet. They prefer sun for best flowering and fruiting, but tolerates partial shade.
The name serviceberry is said to originate because it blooms in early spring around the time when roads became passable and mountain communities could hold memorial “services” for those who died over winter. Another common name, “shadbush,” comes from blooming when the shad fish run upriver to spawn. In fact, serviceberries flowering along the Hudson were a cue to native peoples and colonists that shad were running, an important seasonal event.
7. Pagoda Dogwood (Cornus alternifolia)
A graceful small tree reaching 15 to 25 feet tall with layered horizontal branching. It usually lives between 20–30 years, growing best in full sun to part shade.
The tree’s clusters of white flowers and blue berries provide food for numerous bird species and butterflies. Native Americans used dogwood bark medicinally and carved the dense, hard wood into tools and implements. The tree supports Spring Azure and Summer Azure butterflies, serving as a crucial host plant for these delicate species.
8. Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida)
A beloved flowering tree, typically 20 to 30 feet tall with a broad spread of 25–30 feet. Often multi-trunked or low-branching, this dogwood is moderately long-lived(around 80+ years) but can be threatened by diseases (anthracnose) in some areas.
Grows in part shade to full sun (in full sun it needs moist soil). Prefers well-drained, rich, acidic soil with organic matter. It has showy white (or pink) flowers in spring which provide early nectar/pollen. By late summer, red berry clusters form and persist into fall, providing a high-fat food relished by at least 35 species of birds (including cardinals, robins, woodpeckers, thrushes, and wild turkeys). Native to Hudson Valley forests, flowering dogwood had many ethnobotanical uses. Its bark and roots were used by Native Americans as a fever reducer, pain reliever, and even as a quinine substitute to treat malaria in early America.
9. Black Cherry (Prunus serotina)
A fast-growing cherry can reach 50 to 60 feet tall, with a narrow diameter trunk. It can live 100+ years, with dark and scaly bark.
It loves the full sun for the best form and fruiting, though it can start in partial shade. It is highly adaptable, growing in dry upland woods and moist coves alike. Prefers moist, well-drained loam and does not tolerate waterlogged soils.
In May, it bears long racemes of white flowers that attract bees and many pollinators. These develop into clusters of small black cherries by late summer. Though bitter to humans, the fruits are eaten by over 40 bird species (including thrushes, grosbeaks, tanagers, and cedar waxwings) and by mammals like foxes and black bears. Black cherry’s inner bark was long used in traditional medicine, such as Appalachian folk remedies which prized it as a cough syrup and sedative (the familiar “wild cherry” flavor in cough drops comes from this).
10. Sassafras (Sassafras albidum)
A small to medium deciduous tree, typically 30 to 50 feet tall. It prefers full sun for best growth, but can be tolerant of part shade.
In spring, before leaf-out, yellowish-green flowers appear, which attract bees and other insects. Sassafras is dioecious (separate male and female trees), and only females set fruit: small dark blue drupes, which are high in fat and avidly eaten by birds (like robins, catbirds, pileated woodpeckers) and by small mammals.
Indigenous peoples used sassafras root bark for medicinal tea, and sassafras became one of the earliest New World exports to Europe. In the late 1500s, it was hailed as a cure-all; by 1584 English explorers were already seeking this “miracle” tree. The spicy-smelling roots and wood were the original flavor base for root beer and old-style sarsaparilla.
11. Tulip Tree (Liriodendron tulipifera)
The tulip tree is one of the tallest eastern hardwoods, commonly hitting 60 to 90 feet tall. It loves full sun, and prefers deep, moist, fertile loam soil. Tulip-like yellow-green flowers (with orange centers) appear in late spring, and are loved by bees and hummingbirds.
Also called “canoewood” or whitewood, this tree played a big role in early America. Its lightweight, straight-grained wood was favored by Native Americans for dugout canoes. It’s even said Daniel Boone’s 60-ft dugout canoe was made from a tulip tree. Botanist Francois Michaux noted vast stands of “Yellow Poplar” in the Hudson and Ohio Valleys in the 1700s. The tree is the state tree of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana, underlining its importance. Today it’s valued as a timber species for furniture, veneer, and plywood
12. Black Gum (Nyssa sylvatica)
A medium-sized deciduous tree, Black Gums can get to 30 to 50 feet tall with a straight trunk and a rounded crown. Noted for its often picturesque, gnarly branching on older trees, it can reach 200+ years in undisturbed sites.
It grows best in full sun to partial shade, preferring moist, acidic soils (loam or sand). It produces small blue-black drupes in late summer to fall, which are a wildlife delicacy. These fatty fruits are eaten by many bird species, including thrushes, flickers, and wild turkeys, as well as by black bears and foxes.
13. American Hornbeam (Carpinus caroliniana)
A small understory tree, ranging from 20 to 30 feet tall with a spread also around 20 to feet. It’s very shade-tolerant and thrives in dense shade to part sun.
Hornbeam produces small nutlets attached to three-lobed leafy bracts in clusters, which are eaten in by birds like grouse and turkey and by small mammals. American hornbeam wood is extremely dense and hard – early settlers called it “ironwood.” Though hornbeam’s small size limited its timber use, its wood was prized for tool handles, mallets, wooden cogs, and other applications requiring toughness.
14. Black Birch (Betula lenta)
These trees can reach 40 to 55 feet tall and about 35 to 45 feet wide. They’re fast-growing when young, but usually shorter-lived than oaks, around 150 years.
They do very well in full sun to partial shade, and are most often found on moist, north-facing slopes and well-drained hillsides. Black birch trees prefer rich, acidic, well-drained soil, and in our region, are often seeded into old pastures and woods edges.
Its seeds are small and cone-like catkins that ripen in fall, and are a favorite of finches, redpolls, chickadees, and other seed-eating birds. The birch’s foliage is host to over 400 species of caterpillars, including luna moths and swallowtails. Black birch has the scent of wintergreen in its bark and twigs, and was heavily harvested in the 1800s Hudson Valley for oil of wintergreen. Entrepreneurs peeled vast quantities of black birch bark and twigs, distilling them in ‘birch stills’ to produce wintergreen oil used in candies and medicines. Some people brewed a traditional birch beer from the sap and inner bark.
15. American Basswood (Tilia americana)
A large shade tree with a straight trunk, these typically 60 to 80 foot tall and 30 to 50 foot wide in the Hudson Valley. They love full sun to partial shade and often grow on forest edges.
Basswood’s mid-summer flowers are a huge draw for pollinators. In June, the tree produces clusters of yellowish-white, sweetly fragrant flowers that are immensely popular with honeybees. Its inner bark yields strong fibers that were treasured by Native Americans and colonists alike. The tree was sometimes called “bee-tree” because farmers loved to plant it to support honey production.