![]() This will help prevent excessive moisture loss because of direct exposure to the sun. To help protect the saplings during their first couple of years you should plant them in a spot that has partial shade. If you plant a sapling in the summer months, you will want to plant it in the shade and provide it with enough water to keep its surrounding soil moist. ![]() If you miss an early spring planting, make sure that your sapling is in the ground for at least six weeks before you expect the first frost of fall to strike to provide your sapling enough time to establish its root system and to gain strength. An early planting will give your sapling plenty of time to establish a new root system before the temperatures become hot. The ideal time for planting red maples is in the early spring. Until you are ready to plant it, keep it in the shade and keep its soil moist. If you purchased your red maple tree sapling from a local grower or merchant, then your sapling will most likely come in a container with dirt. This will help to stimulate the sapling and help restore its strength. In order to prepare your sapling for planting you will need to remove it from the box, lay it flat on the ground, spread out its roots and branches, and sprinkle the entire plant with water. This means that the roots will be dry and free of dirt. If you purchase your red maple tree sapling from a mail-order company, it should arrive in a box as a bare root plant. However, once your sapling matures into an established tree, it will be able to provide you with shade and be a visually stunning display for your landscaping. This phase of the tree’s life cycle is very delicate because the sapling can easily be damaged or killed if it is not given the care it needs. Here’s a remembrance of Anne Spencer and her Red Maple.A red maple tree sapling is a red maple that is less than two years old. Feel free to share your experiences with Red Maple. When older it won’t likely enjoy full defoliation, but perhaps try the selective leaf surface reduction as we do with Japanese Maple. But that makes sense as the Vine Maple is an understory plant whereas the Red Maple is a canopy tree.Īs for leaf technique, it appears similar to Japanese Maple. Here’s a post about that technique in Deciduous Early Development.Īs for sun tolerance, I keep Anne’s tree under a 40% shade area in summer so it’s more sun tolerant than the native Vine Maple which prefers deeper shade. If you wish to try this species my suggestion is to leave more shoots than you want, as that will eventually shorten all future shoots. Easy to maintain, doesn’t get argumentative, and the silvery bark is just lovely.Ī young Red Maple’s internodes may be hard to manage, though. My thoughts? In the end zone, it’s a solid species for bonsai. ![]() Which this one is beginning to do, following suit with old tree mechanics. Crowns on old freely growing trees are not uniform after all. We’re fertilizing it a bit more, which can often resurrect weaker branches. A tree as mature as this is going to lose a twig or branch now and then, and you can see one in the crown at about 1:30 that’s been getting weaker the last couple years. We upsized the pot after the last photo, needing more wiggle room. Much like Anne I’ve partially defoliated occasionally to weaken overly strong branches.Īnd as it looks in August, 2021, exactly 30 years since Anne’s first photo of it. Here the tree had settled into middle age and the petioles and internodes were shorter. In 2014, when the maple had been in my garden for a few years already. In 2008 Anne documented her leaf reduction technique to bring light into the interior and balance strong areas. The structure that it retains today was well in place by then.Īnne said the internodes were starting to behave in 2008. ![]() Here is the Red Maple in 1999, showing the long internodes that Anne said took nearly 20 years to simmer down into polite short ones. The photo on the left is from 1991 when it was 3 years old. The first images from Anne Spencer’s ‘adoption papers’, the complete photographic history handed to those lucky enough to get one of her trees. Almost all the photos are Anne’s, except the last two. I have, however, taken care of an older one for 10 years, and have a few thoughts.Īnne Spencer designed and grew the tree featured here for 20 years, from a 3-year old plant. It’s a bit of a stretch to suggest I have wide bonsai experience with Red Maple. It’s well regarded as a street tree for great fall color and less sidewalk issues than other maples. Red Maple, Acer rubrum, is a North American forest tree with a range extending from southeastern Canada to Florida. Posted by crataegus on Augin Uncategorized | 8 Comments
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