Eastern Red Cedar

The southern range of eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) includes states such as Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi. This evergreen has a cone shape when young, but becomes more open, with space between its branches, as it gets older. This tree is a proverbial jack-of-all-trades for landscapers, with usages including as a screen, foundation plant and windbreak. Fill in poor quality soil sites with the eastern red cedar in mass plantings, since it does well where other trees have problems taking root.

Florida Torreya

If more people utilized the Florida torreya (Torreya taxifolia) as a landscaping evergreen in the South, the tree may yet escape extinction, notes the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. The Florida torreya grows to 40 feet, requiring a long period to mature. Very rare in the wild, this evergreen has drooping branches covered with sharp, shiny needle-like foliage. The Florida torreya grows best in a partly shady place featuring slightly acidic, moist soil.

Atlantic White Cedar

Landscapers plant the Atlantic white cedar (Chamaecyparis thyoides) as a lawn tree in the South, with the tree especially able to handle wet sites. The evergreen grows in the wild from the Carolinas to the Mississippi coastal regions, with some attaining heights of 50 feet. The handsome, blue-green needles possess sharp points, and the gray to red-brown box has distinct ridges in it. Bears in the Deep South use Atlantic white cedar to mark their territory, notes the National Forest Service.

Spruce Pine

In the open, a spruce pine (Pinus glabra) grows between 30 and 50 feet, but those in a wooded site can top 80 feet. Spruce pine is among the best evergreens in the South for creating windbreaks, since the tree features low branches full of needles. The foliage grows to 3 inches and the trunks of the spruce pine contort into twisted shapes as they mature. Spruce pine makes a solid specimen tree; locate it in acidic soil in full sun for premier results. The tree is native from southern South Carolina along the Gulf Coast westward through Mississippi.