05/20/2026
😢Are you pining your Norfolk Island Pine?🌲Unsure if it's going to bounce back or if you need to cut it down? Hurricane season is approaching, and these trees might be a hazard if they are dead or holding dead branches. Read on to learn more...
🌲First off, this tree is not really a true pine. It is a member of a family of conifers that date back to the Jurassic period called the Araucariaceae Family. Norfolk Island Pine are from Norfolk Island which is located between Australia and New Zealand. The climate is subtropical with highs in the mid 70’s in the summer and lows in the mid 50’s in the winter. This should give us a clue that Norfolk Island Pines are not as cold tolerant as we hope. They can suffer tip damage in temperatures as low as 35 degrees and severe damage when temperatures dip into the mid 20’s.
🌲They're commonly used as a Christmas tree-like houseplant throughout the United States. In central and south Florida, they are sometimes planted in the landscape when they outgrow their containers as houseplants. This strategy has even worked in north Florida the last few years as our winters have been getting warmer. However, this winter’s cold temperatures have turned many, if not all, the planted Norfolk Island Pines a shade of rusty brown. This leads to the obvious question, what do we do now, especially with hurricane season coming up in a month?
🌲We don’t have a lot of history with these trees in FL as they are new additions to our landscape because of changes in our winter temperatures. The collective recommendation is to wait until mid-June to make an assessment on whether to remove a cold damaged tree or prune it. You can determine if a branch is dead or alive by performing the “scratch test”. With a pocketknife or box knife scratch a small area of the branch to remove the bark, if there is no green tissue, you can conclude that the branch is dead. Repeat the process with the stem. If most or all the tree is comprised of dead branches you may decide to remove the tree.
🌲If there is a fair amount of living tissue, the tree may be able to recover. Start out by pruning out any dead limbs, ensuring you do not prune out any portions of branches that show evidence of new growth emerging. Some heavily damaged trees make a decent recovery, but it takes time and patience. It may require one or two years for trees to produce an acceptable level of new growth. Read more about the species here: https://ask.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/ST083.