Global warming leads to more frequent, durative and intensive drought events, with severe impact on forests. The area of plantation forests has gradually increased due to human efforts, but whether there are any significant differences in response to drought of plantation and natural forests is still disputed. In this study, we choose Yunnan province as the research region. Multiple-time-scale meteorological drought index (SPEI) was used to reflect strength of drought, MODIS remote sensing monitoring information of enhanced vegetation index (EVI) was used to characterize forest growth state, best time-scale of SPEI and month of EVI sensitive to water were acquired by analyzing relationship between SPEI and EVI, then difference in growth state response of planted and natural forests to short-term (2001-2008) and prolonged drought (2009-2014) was compared on provincial and Thiessen polygon scale. It was found that whether it was planted forests or natural forests, the impact of prolonged drought was greater than short-term drought. Natural forest growth state was influenced more by prolonged drought than planted forests, growth state of natural forests was worse than planted forests. Extreme droughts are likely to increase in the future, therefore more attention should be paid to their impact on natural forests and recoverability of natural forests.