Pronounciation: PIE-nus ka-nar-ee-EN-sis

Hardiness zones:
Sunset 9, 11-13, 15-24
USDA 9-11

Landscape Use: Because of its large mature size, Canary Island pine is best used in large park, commercial, institutional, and industrial settings, large residential landscapes, skyline accent tree, mesic landscape designs. Here's an image of Canary Island pine used as a street tree in Hollywood, California.

Form & Character: Upright, columnar, graceful, strongly conical to fastigiated with pendulous needle foliage, ridged and furrowed chocolate brown trunk contrasts well with its graceful, green to glaucous weeping needles.

Growth Habit: Evergreen, woody, narrowleaf perennial tree, strongly excurrent, quite slow when young, but with an increased rate of growth with age and establishment (and water!) to 100 feet, persistence of juvenile foliage.

Foliage/Texture: Adult foliage green to glaucous having 3 needles per fascicle, needles pendulous to 8- to 12-inches long (note: branches are not pendulous), juvenile foliage strongly contrasting, single needles blue gray to only 3 inches, nearly always present on inner and lower canopy branches; medium-fine texture.

Flowers & Fruits: All pines are monoecious (male and females flowers on same plant), flowers early spring, male and female strobili born on same tree, male strobili on lower part of tree and female strobili on upper part of tree, female cones are persistent and ripen in early fall, tree must be about 15 to 20 years old to bear cones.

Seasonal Color: White candles (growth of new seasonal terminal apical meristems) in early spring.

Temperature: Tolerates fairly well the desert heat of Phoenix in mesic landscapes with adequate water. However, it fares poorly in xeric landscapes and sites with reflected radiation, drier soil, and a lot of concrete and asphalt surface cover. Chronic heat and drought stress Will typically show as twig and branch dieback during late summer and fall. Performs magnificently along coastal valleys of southern California and is used extensively in San Diego and Los Angeles.

Light: Full sun

Soil: Tolerant

Watering: Canary Island pine need a schedule of regular waterings to maintain adequate soil moisture, a robust appearance, and to prevent drought stress.

Pruning: Only puning needs are to raise the canopy base height as necessary.

Propagation: Seed

Disease and Pests: Occasional spider mites and scale; green aphids during spring quickly come and go.

Additional comments: Canary Island pine is slow to establish and grow when young. Because of this fact, I suggest that unlike other landscape plants it is best to specify and transplant larger rather than smaller specimens into landscaping situations. Compared with other pine species, Canary Island pine is remarkably tolerant of lower desert urban conditions so long as there is an adequate supply of water.