Red Maple
Submitted by treeman on Mon, 03/03/2008 - 12:46
(1 vote)
The Red Maple is a tree native to eastern North America. It is best known for its brilliant red/orange foliage display in autumn. While its typical natural habitat is the edge of swaps and it will tolerate poor soil drainage, it thrives on well drained soil. It really is quite versatile as it can also be found on xeric mountain ridges in the southern Appalachians. As a seedling or sapling, the red maple is quite shade tolerant, growing slowly in the shade of established overstory trees, then shooting upward to fill a canopy hole, when an overtopping neighbor dies or is removed.
Rooting tends to be shallow with surface exposed roots common on erroded, wet or rocky sites where rooting depth is inhibited by water tables, dense clay or excessive rock. This is common in many landscape situations and can be a liability where foot traffic is heavy. It also depletes surface soil moisture levels where it occurs, making the establishment and maintenance of sod or moist gardens impractical if not impossible.
While usually forming a tight dense attractive crown in youth, mature specimens may well display rather errose, open, irregular, and coarse appearances. This is often due to is suceptability to winter storm damage. The wood is soft and weak, and the loss of large limbs is common. Look for varieties that branch at right angles to avoid this maladay.
There are many named cultivars of red maple, most of which refer to its autumn coloration (i.e. Autumn Blaze, and October Glory). To this person's knowledge there is no one that is significantly more desirable than any other. The color mix may vary some what. Some like 'Bowhall', 'Armstrong', or 'Columnare' may have narrower than normal crowns.
The red maple is a large shade tree that needs adequate space for crown spread. Planting closer than 30 or 40 feet to buildings will inevitably lead to conflicts and problems down road. Give it space. Because of its fall color and relatively fast growth rate it is a popular selection for landscape planting. My opinion it is often misused and because of the space issue, the shallow root system, and its eventual size and form. It does have that great fall color and that intriguing late winter bloom, though. Use it carefully, and it will be asset to a large landscape. In the small landscape ther are better selections available.
Japanes Reds
Japanes Red Maples are a completely different species (actually two species). Acer Japonicum and A. Palmatum are both refered to as Japanese Maples and both species have cultivars and hybrids that are referred to as Japanese Red Maples. Many of these have red foliage of varying shades thruout the growing season. There are many, many, many named cultivars of Japanese maple., nearly all of which will show at least some red in autumn. They are also much smaller trees than the A. rubrum, topping out at 30 feet or so.
"He who plants a tree, plants hope" Lucy Larcom
Texas Reds
Whoops sorrySusan, I posted this in the wrong place
Susan, I tried to find a reference to "Texas Red Maple" and could not find one. There is however a Maple, Texas. I suspect the ad you saw was for a red maple grown in a Texas nursery.... perhaps a colloquial name for a local strain of trees or a name applied by a local nursery to attract attention to trees they are selling. It happens a lot. The name is not a patented or an officially named cultivar, but simply a colloquially named cultivar.
"He who plants a tree, plants hope" Lucy Larcom
Treeman, I recently read
I agree with you, though, it may be the spectacular fall color that attracts people to a tree like this. And because of its appearance in that way, I suspect people tend to consider that more than they do the conditions in which they are planting it and whether it's suited to those conditions. A case in point would be an Arizona ash that was taken down outside one of my bedroom windows last spring. We had a spring that was so wet that it brought on virtual monsoon conditions with rains on some days as much as a foot. The excessive moisture started to weigh the top branches down to the point of almost causing it to fall on the roof. While that was happening, the entire trunk split right down the middle. Fortunately it didn't split all the way through -- otherwise it would undoubtedly have landed on the roof. It was clearly a tree that wasn't suited to excessive moisture. It was probably also a tree that wasn't supposed to have a very long life span. I hate that trees are often torn down for reasons other than absolute necessity. In this case, the safety of many people and the legal liability that its presence probably posed made it really necessary.
Susan, the Texas Yankee, the Texas Rangerette and the Assistant Administrator
SKBeal's Snazzy Tra
Susan,The Assistant Administrator, the Texas Yankee and the Texas Rangerette.