Landscape - Tree Salt Tolerance

Salt Damage on Maple

Image from "Salt Damage and Trees" from the University of Massachusetts Extension

Winter deicing season is coming and there is potential for salt damage to landscape plants. The following is a list of some landscape trees and their salt tolerance

Moderately Tolerant Deciduous Trees

black cherry
black locust
box elder
bur oak
callery pear
English oak
golden willow
green ash
honey locust
horse-chestnut
Norway maple
red oak
Russian olive
Siberian crabapple
Siberian elm
tree-of-heaven
weeping willow
white oak
white poplar

Intolerant Deciduous Trees

American elm
American linden
apple
basswood
beech
box elder
boxwood
flowering quince
ginkgo
ironwood
hickory
hornbeam
little-leaf linden
mimosa
red maple
shagbark hickory
silver maple
sugar maple
sycamore

Moderately Tolerant Evergreens

Austrian pine
Colorado blue spruce
Japanese black pine
mugo pine
pitch pine
red cedar
white spruce

Intolerant Evergreens

balsam fir
Canadian hemlock
Douglas-fir
Eastern white pine
red pine

List from an article by Ann B. Gould, Ph.D., Specialist in Plant Pathology, Rutgers University in the March 16, 2006 issue of the Plant and Pest Advisory, Landcape, Nursery, and Turf Edition.