Black Gum Tree – a Splendid Tree in Any Landscape

In the cold mid-winter months I spend a lot of time looking at and thinking about my garden and planning the improvements I will make in the coming season. Sunny winter days are a great time to walk through the garden and see it in its simplest form without flowers and stripped of leaves. In this winter landscape, trees become the stars of the show and it’s easy to see how they provide structure and interest in the garden. In winters past I’ve planned for the addition of trees to screen my views of neighboring homes and a road adjacent to my house, and to add privacy and reduce noise from traffic on the road. In the years since the trees have filled in, softening the hard edges of buildings, drawing my eyes upward to the sky, and bringing organization to the yard as focal points in planting beds.

Planting a tree can add many benefits besides improving your garden and views. It will bring immediate benefits that grow with time as the tree grows. Trees add value to your property, create shade to reduce summer temperatures, serve as windbreaks to reduce home heating costs and protect your perennial beds from wind damage, filter pollutants from the air, absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen, and capture and store stormwater to reduce flooding.

Our climate here in south central Pennsylvania is suitable for many trees and in particular native trees. Native trees have an advantage over non-natives because they are suited to our environment and growing conditions and better support the needs of native wildlife. This is an important consideration these days because many of our birds and insects are facing threats and experiencing population declines due, in part, to a loss of habitat, food, and shelter. Trees meet all of these wildlife needs.

One native tree, the black gum or black tupelo also known as sour gum, grows well in our area. It tolerates our clay soil and hot humid summers. The tree is of medium size, growing to a mature height of 50 feet and has an attractive pyramidal shape that spreads with maturity into a nicely proportioned shade tree. The tree has a single straight trunk with branches growing out at right angles making it a good option as a single specimen tree. They are a good selection for planting beds because you can plant shade-loving plants underneath the tree's long branches.

The black gum tree is deciduous, growing leaves in the spring and dropping them in the fall. The small (up to 5 inches in length), oval-shaped leaves are a lustrous dark green. The leaves turn vivid shades of orange, red and purple in the fall.

Known by its scientific name, Nyssa sylvatica, the black gum prefers moist well-drained, acidic soil in full sun to partial shade. It naturally occurs in forested seasonal wetlands and swamps and in upland woods and slopes that are seasonally flooded. Its natural range extends west from Maine and New York through Michigan, Illinois, and Ohio and south to Texas and Florida.

Once this tree was difficult to find in nurseries, but these days black gum are fairly easy to purchase. The tree has a large taproot that makes it difficult to transplant, so plan on purchasing a young tree and putting it in a location with adequate sun, drainage, and moisture. You will want to supplement rainfall with water during prolonged dry periods for the first few years after you plant it. The tree is very tolerant of clay soils but is not very tolerant of alkaline soils. The tree is slow growing, increasing in size by about a foot a year. The trunk of a mature tree is attractive with deeply ridged bark that becomes more interesting with age. Cavities in the bark provide shelter for frogs, bats, lizards, and insects. Black gums live a long time and once they die cavities inside the tree serve as homes to wildlife. Seedlings and saplings are a preferred food source for deer, so they will need protection in an area with a large deer population. As the trees mature they become less attractive to deer.

The tree flowers in April to May. Small, greenish-white flowers grow in clusters on long stalks. They are an important source of nectar for pollinators and in particular bees.  Considered “honey trees”, they are highly attractive to honey bees and produce large quantities of nectar that can be harvested in sufficient quantities to make honey. Advertisements for tupelo honey suggest that it has a unique flavor, light color, and smooth consistency.

The tree’s dark fruit ripen in October before many other fall fruits and so are an important food source for migrating birds and other wildlife. Black tupelos are dioecious, with male and female flowers on separate trees. Trees may also have some perfect flowers -- these are flowers with both male and female flower parts. Only the female and perfect flowers will produce fruit.

Largely free of serious diseases and pests, the tupelo may be affected by black leaf spot, rust, and cankers, leaf miners, borers, and scale. The tree’s ability to fend off diseases and pests can be improved by keeping the tree healthy with watering during dry spells and periodic use of a fertilizer. The tree is generally low maintenance and does not require extensive pruning other than removing dead or dying branches or crossing branches. It is hardy to USDA zone 3 (the 2023 USDA plant hardiness map has most of Adams County in zone 7a) and does not require winter protection.

A number of cultivars have been bred to take advantage of the glossy, colorful foliage. Most of the cultivars increase resistance to leaf spot and offer variety to suit your tastes. There are cultivars that offer variety of shape including pyramidal, weeping, and columnar, also leaf color variation, timing and intensity of fall leaf color, and faster growth.

If you are considering the addition of a tree or trees to your landscape, consider black gum for its lovely shape, leaf texture and color, flowers and berries, and its attractiveness to wildlife. It is smaller than some of our more majestic trees like oak and hickory and yet it provides many of the same benefits. In the fall, it will lose its leaves slowly so they can be left where they fall and you can avoid raking and removal.

­­­­­­­­Pam Haze is a Penn State Master Gardener from Adams County. 

Penn State Cooperative Extension of Adams County is located at 670 Old Harrisburg Road, Suite 204, Gettysburg, phone 334-6271.

Master Gardener Hotline is open Wednesdays from 10am - 2pm. Please send an email (with pictures if possible) to adamsmg@psu.edu with your gardening questions, or stop by Penn State Extension, 670 Old Harrisburg Road, Gettysburg.

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