Fast Growing Trees Guide: By Location, Season, Type (Privacy vs Flowering)

Looking for fast growing trees to create more shade or privacy around your home? You’re not alone.

Over half of Americans who own homes have a fence on their properties.¹

Homeowners typically install fences on their property for specific security concerns. However, if your fence exceeds a certain height or encroaches on the boundary lines of your neighbors, many neighborhoods and towns require permits.²

However, opting to plant fast-growing trees on your property is one avenue many people take to not only increase privacy, but also enhance the beauty and functionality of the outdoor spaces.

This complete guide outlines a number of fast growing trees and species you can chose, regardless of your specific growing zone or location.

Fast Growing Trees By Location

The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone interactive map is an online tool that tells you what types of plants or trees you can plant safely relative to where you live.³

Although you don’t need a permit to plant a tree on your private property.⁴ You should consult your local City Hall or building inspector’s office to double-check.

Trees should not grow on boundary lines or tall enough to grow branches that extend onto other properties, even if the tree originates on your property.

Before choosing a fast growing tree species to plant, decide the primary reasons for the decision. for example, are you looking to enhance property shade (which can also lower energy bills), or would you prefer flowering trees to accent garden areas?

Perhaps you’d like to build a privacy hedge? In any case, choosing the best trees for the purpose will ensure that you are able to reach your goals.

What Are the Best Fast Growing Privacy Trees?

Here are a few of the best fast-growing trees that you should consider planting if your primary concern is shading your property or adding an extra layer of privacy.

Eastern Red Cedar

The Eastern Red Cedar Tree is evergreen, which means that its leaves stay on all year round. It is also a coniferous tree. That means that the tree is either cone-shaped, or grows cones, and scaly-like, durable leaves.

The Thuja Green Giant

The Thuja Green Giant Tree is extremely resilient as well as fast-growing. This tree is resilient to extreme drought conditions, insect and pest infestation, and arbor diseases, and it adapts well to most of the environments that it is planted.

Additionally, the Thuja Green Giant is a very low-maintenance tree. As it grows it provides wide canopy coverage in a very uniform manner.

In other words, its growth is never unruly and you don’t have to shear or prune it regularly.

This tree grows about three to five annually. It could grow up to 20 feet within three years under optimal conditions.

Its maximum height is 40 feet.

Leyland Cypress

The Leyland Cypress Tree is one of the most popular fast-growing trees for privacy amongst residential homeowners. Many suburban homeowners use it in their horticulture landscapes to create privacy screens in their yards.

This tree is hardy and will prosper in most soil types. You could plant a few in a relatively close grouping so that they grow to provide hedge screening as they grow. And they are easy to prune.

The Leyland Cypress tree grows up to 20 feet within three years and up to a maximum height of 60 feet.

River Birch

The River Burch is one of those nearly perfect fast-growing trees that can tolerate drier soil conditions. You should plant it in wet and well-drained soil for optimal growth.

Do not plant this tree in lime-saturated soil.

It grows about 30 inches annually and up to a maximum height of 30 feet after a decade. The River Burch develops a natural and colorful reddish-brown bark and diamond-shaped leaves.

Eastern White Pine

This is a coniferous and evergreen tree that is native to North America. Its leaves and needles feature a silky texture and aesthetically beautiful branch systems.

The Eastern White Pine grows optimally in a lot of sun coverage and in soil that is well-drained. It grows about 15 inches annually and up to a maximum height of 100 feet.

Silver Maple

The Silver Maple Tree is a very adaptable tree that can grow in suburban and urban environments alike and in even in poorly drained soil systems.

If you do choose this fast-growing tree to plant, make sure that you space them out 10 to 20 feet apart.

Silver Maple leaves grow quickly and develop hefty volume and mass rapidly. This tree will grow up to 60 feet.

Oakland Holly

This is an evergreen and conifer tree that doesn’t grow any needles. Its leaves highly resemble oak tree leaves.

The flowers on this tree are female and male, so you don’t need pollinating insects for flowers to bloom. Oakland Holly berries are highly toxic, so don’t eat them or reconsider using this plant if you have small children or pets.

The Oakland Holly grows up to two feet annually and up to 20 feet within a decade.

What Are the Best Fast Growing Flowering Trees? (Fast-Growing Trees)

If you are interested in landscape aesthetics just as much or more than fast-growing trees that provide privacy canopies, here is a list of some of the best fast-growing flowering trees:

Muskogee Crape Myrtle

The Muskogee Crape Myrtle grows up to five feet annually and up to 15 to 25 feet within three years. If you live in a cooler environment, it could grow anywhere between six and 10 feet with a bushy and shrub-like canopy.¹¹

The leaves of this tree transform into beautiful hues of red and orange during the autumn months.

Weeping Willow

The Weeping Willow Tree is often associated with grief, and solitude and has long been the inspiration for poetry, songs, and other creative media. Its sliver-like leaves are long and slender and point vertically down toward the ground.

Whenever it rains, the raindrops roll down the leaves like human teardrops, hence the name.

The Weeping Willow tree grows at a rate of about six to eight feet annually. It can grow up to 50 feet tall after a decade.

Its branches have brown-colored shoots and very slender green-colored leaves that turn gold and blue in the autumn. As long as its soil is never fully dry, this is a very low-maintenance tree.

And it is incredibly disease resistant.

American Sycamore

This tree thrives in moist and well-drained soil conditions it grows at a rate of about two to four feet annually. It will grow up to 40 feet after a decade.

Pay attention to this tree’s height after a decade. It could grow as high as 120 feet over two or three decades.

The American Sycamore Tree has striking aesthetics that will make your landscape stand apart. The bark of the tree can sometimes be white, grey, and orange colored.

Its leaves look like maple tree leaves. And it blooms cherry-sized fruits that are brown in color.

Tulip Poplar

The Tulip Polar Tree grows anywhere between two to four feet annually. It will grow up to 40 feet to 50 feet within a decade to 15 years.

It is a resilient tree that will grow in most kinds of soil. While this tree can grow very tall very rapidly, be advised that it drops its lowermost branches as it grows taller.

It blooms orange-colored and tulip-shaped flowers in the summer. Its signature four-pointed leaves change colors to a buttery brown in the fall.

Needlepoint Holly

This tree has a rooting system that stays shallow in the soil. So, it is perfect to plant as a uniform hedge privacy screen for your yard and house as it grows into a tree.

This tree does require a lot of sun and some shading to thrive, however.

Its leaves turn a green, red, and creamy hue of white throughout the seasons. It flowers a red-colored fruit berry in the autumn that also attracts birds.

This tree grows about three feet annually and up to 15 feet at the maximum.

The Japanese False Cypress

This tree is native to Japan that is renowned for its yellow, silver, and blue leaves. Its leaves also feel feathery and soft to the touch.

The Japanese False Cypress is known for growing straight up in a pyramid-style shape. And it is a low-maintenance plant that does require much pruning if any at all.

This tree can grow up to 60 feet in height.

Pink Dogwood

This tree grows about three feet annually and anywhere between 10 to 25 within three to five years.

This tree requires soil that is relatively more acidic but it can grow in partial shade and indirect sun exposure.

Every spring, the leaves on this tree transform into a beautiful, deep-pink hue.

Fastest Growing Trees: What Are the Best Fast Growing Trees (State)

As previously stated within this guide, there are no one-size-fits-all metrics or rules when it comes to how fast a tree will grow in a given period of time.

How fast a tree grows in any given amount of time depends on the species of the tree, exposure to sunlight, soil conditions, access to water, and many other factors.

(Image: Schwoaze¹⁶)

Just because you see the fastest growing tree on this list in your state does not mean that the tree will grow optimally in your specific state region of residence. Consult an arborist when in doubt.

And always remember to go over your boundary lines and property blueprints before planting trees that grow tall in height and potentially thick trunks and expansive root systems.

Even though this guide references the fastest-growing trees, even the fast-growing ones grow over a timeline of years. And that is a long time to wait to realize you planted the wrong tree or planted them in the wrong areas.

Now, here is a list of the fastest-growing trees relative to your state of residence.