Southern Live Oak
Quercus virginiana
A magnificent, long-lived oak with a vast, spreading crown of gnarled limbs, often hung with Spanish moss, that holds its leaves nearly all year, the classic Southern shade tree and a haven for birds. It's very wind resistant and takes salt spray, clay or sand and periodic flooding. It needs a great deal of room.
- Mature size
- 50 × 80 ft
- 15 × 24.5 m, tall × wide
- Hardiness
- Zones 8a–10b
- USDA
- Sun
- Full sun to part shade
- Water
- Medium to moist
- Blooms
- Mar–Apr
Southern Live Oak at its mature size
A mature Southern Live Oak grows 40 to 60 feet tall and 60 to 100 feet wide, taller than most people.
Drawn to scale beside a 5 ft 9 in person. With VeraScape, you see it at this size in your own yard.
Typical mature size, unpruned. Sources: NC State Extension, The Tree Center, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
Through the year
What Southern Live Oak looks like month by month in a typical zone 6–7 garden.
In leaf · Year-round
Dense small dark green leaves on huge spreading limbs.
Photos
Growing Southern Live Oak
- Grows well in
- The Southeast, the Plains and Mountain West, and California.
- Growth rate
- Medium
- Good for
- Privacy screen, specimen, deer resistant, and pollinators
- Leaves
- Evergreen
- Native to
- Southeastern United States and Texas
Spacing
VeraScape spaces plants so their grown canopies just touch. For Southern Live Oak, that’s about 80 ft apart, center to center.
Place a row in your own yard and VeraScape spaces them at their mature width, so you can see whether they’ll crowd the walk.
See Southern Live Oak in your yard before you dig
Visualize it at its true size, alongside the rest of your design.
Other oaks
Southern Live Oak
Coast Live Oak
Swamp White Oak
Willow OakAll drawn to the same scale.