Sag Harbor and its Trees

Linden tree ready to bloom in Sag Harbor, New York

Trees young and old are what frame the eclectic richness of Sag Harbor’s architecture and its lively street life. Its neighborhood landscapes are determined by trees and the microclimates they create through shade and root patterns, and water and nutrient demands.

Even for the casual visitor, coming into Sag Harbor is like coming home to an ideal village thanks to the urban forest that gives proportion and warmth to the varied townscape.

Tour Sag Harbor Village Trees

A 45-minute walk offers a representative selection of historic specimens, and young plantations of the Sag Harbor Tree Fund. Start on Main Street, in front of the Whaling Museum between Garden and Howard Streets. 367 trees have been planted as of 2025.

Sycamore and London Plane trees along Sag Harbor, New York streets

  • Sag Harbor’s first trees were native sycamores (Platanus occidentalis), which were planted along Main Street for more than a mile in 1816-17. The 200-year-old specimen in front of the Whaling Museum, 200 Main Street, is one of a half-dozen surviving in the village. Because of disease and bad growth habits, London planes (Platanus x acerifolia), are now planted instead. Compare the bark of the London plane at 191 Main Street; it is mottled like the sycamore, but darker. The London plane is our preferred waterfront tree because of its salt and wind resistance. 27 are planted on Main Street, Long Island Avenue, and the Long Wharf.

Closeup of a red maple tree leaf in Sag Harbor, New York

  • Turn right on Main Street on leaving the museum. Across the street stands a young native red, or swamp, maple (Acer rubrum) at 203 Main Street. Red maples are uniformly “red” only in April, when their flowers announce earliest spring. There are many mature maples in town, chiefly Norways (Acer platanoides), which comprised 39% of our urban forest in 1993. Because of disease, structural weakness, and utility wire concerns, smaller species are now used.

Elm tree leaves through the light in the Village of Sag Harbor

  • To the left of the sidewalk on the same side of Main in front of the Napier-Howell house, 238 Main Street, stands a now-rare American elm. It is one of the village’s three surviving specimens of Ulmus americana, a species treasured for its graceful vase shape and fine textured drooping branches. A mid-19th century account describes the first street plantation of elms as a “monument,” and hoped that its example would be “extensively imitated.” It was. But undiversified plantings resulted in shadeless streets when the Dutch elm beetle arrived. Zelkovas (Z. serrata), which have a comparable silhouette, have been substituted: one stands at 245 Main Street, and six on Sage Street. New disease-resistant American elm cultivars have been introduced; two ‘Delaware II’, are planted inside the Whaling Museum fence. Six Ulmus americana ‘Princeton’ stand on Main Street and three are on Jermain Avenue between Madison and Division; five ‘Frontier’ grace Main Street’s downtown block. The latest addition to the elm recovery story are two Jefferson elms (Ulmus americana ‘Jefferson’), one planted on Jermain behind the Elementary School and the other on Hampton Street across from the school. These trees were two of a dozen that were sent to the Tree Fund in small pots by the National Park Service and grown for four years at Stony Hill Nursery. Now they have replicated the tall vase shape of their sire, an enormous survivor of the Dutch elm blight that still stands on the National Mall in front of the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.

Linden tree ready to bloom in Sag Harbor Village, New York

  • Continue on Main to Bayview Avenue, where the right side of the street is lined with enormous littleleaf lindens (Tilia cordata), a favorite European planting. These specimens date to the mid-19th century. Lindens may have been part of the nursery stock aboard the “Louis Philippe,” a French merchant ship, which wrecked off Mecox Bay near Bridgehampton in March 1842. Many salvaged specimens (perhaps including boxwoods, roses, and European beeches as well as lindens) were planted in the village, according to local lore. Sturdy and pollution-resistant, lindens are appropriate for busy Main Street, where they are planted at numbers 264, 268, 272 and 292 (Canio’s Books). Cross Main Street to turn back towards the Whaling Museum, noting the zelkova as you pass 275 Main Street.

Japanese maples are an exotic species that can be found in the village of Sag Harbor, New York

  • Living trophies came home aboard ship: Empress and Japanese pagoda trees, weeping mulberries, Manchurian walnuts, Chinese smoke trees. At the end of the driveway at 249 Main Street, visible from the side - walk, is one of two Japanese pagoda trees (Sophora japonica) whose fragrant, pendant, white blossoms appear in July/August. This pair, once the largest on Long Island, were felled by storms, but their trunks sprouted new shoots, which are now flowering size again. A specimen Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) used to stand at 241 Main Street, one of the earliest to reach the U.S. after Admiral Oliver Perry’s visit opened Japan in 1854. Its offspring can still be seen at 227 Main Street and as you turn the corner onto Palmer Terrace.

Look for gingko trees in the seaside village of Sag Harbor, New York

  • Also on Palmer Terrace, on your right, are four ginkgos (G. biloba), recognizable by their fan-shaped leaves and gold fall color.

Oak tree leaf changing color in the fall in the seaside village of Sag Harbor, New York

  • Parklike Oakland Cemetery is located at the junction of Palmer Terrace and Jermain Avenue in a remnant grove of the original deciduous Long Island forest where white, swamp white, black, scarlet, red and pin oak thrive. These glorious natives are not often recommended as street trees because of their slow growth, huge spread and low branching habit. Only two of several monumental oaks remain behind Pierson High School on Montauk Avenue. New white oaks (Quercus alba) have been planted in Oakland Cemetery.

flowering trees in the seaside village of Sag Harbor

  • At the left hand corner of Jermain Avenue and Suffolk Street is Sage Park, the Tree Fund’s earliest planting effort. It includes small flowering trees: crabs (Malus ‘Sugar Tyme’) and callery pears (Pyrus calleryana ‘Aristocrat’) flourish in the sunny spots while early flowering shadblow (Amelanchier arborea) and redbud (Cercis canadensis), classic American understory trees thrive in light shade or sun. Larger trees include native black oak (Quercus velutina), part of the older growth, pepperidge (Nyssa sylvatica), another native, a Katsura tree (Cercidiphyllum japonicum) with its apricot fall color, and an empress tree (Paulownia tomentosa), whose blueish flowers bloom over Memorial Day weekend in our climate. The Chinese “empress” came to Sag Harbor inadvertently: seed pods were used as packing material aboard merchant ships; old specimens stand in sheltered corners throughout the village.

Sag Harbor Tree Fund tour explores the history of the whaling village and the role of trees

  • Follow Suffolk Street, noting fine lindens at 39 Main Street on the right and 18 Main Street on the left. Walk down Amity for a glimpse of a young catalpa (Catalpa bignonoides) on the right. Notice the crown of the village’s best American elm at 116 Madison Street, then walk back to Suffolk. Turn left onto Jefferson and finish the tour circuit at the Whaling Museum. For a change of scene, take Garden Street to Long Island Avenue to stroll Jean’s Walk, our latest large project.