It’s finally spring in Ontario, and the leaves are showing on trees along our streets!
Many people mistake the reddish-coloured leaves of the NON-NATIVE Crimson King Norway Maple, thinking it’s a Red Maple.
In fact, the NATIVE Red Maple has green leaves in spring and summer, it’s only red in the fall.
Distinguishing tip:
Break a Norway maple leaf petiole (stem) and the sap is white. Break a Sugar Maple petiole and sap is clear.
A note from one of our rebate recipients:
Wilting leaves on a customer’s maple tree
I talked with our friends at Maple Leaves Forever last week when the leaves on one of the sugar maples I planted along my laneway three years ago took on a wilted appearance. What’s up?
I live and work in the city and escape to my farm on the weekends, so the ability to water my trees is limited.
I used to spend most of Saturday watering trees with a hose or buckets from a tank on my Gator.
I lost 7 trees to drought stress in 2016. Replaced them with container grown trees in 2017 and tried to keep the replacement trees and the remaining originals watered as best I could.
Still lost 2 of these and 2 more from the original planting in 2017. Trees need water to survive.
Wilting maple on the landowner’s laneway
Maple Leaves Forever suggested I get some ”tree watering bags” for the trees I planted this year and to continue to water the trees I planted in 2017. It takes 2 – 3 years for a tree to grow new roots and get established in their new environment. They said the older trees should be watered every week to ten days during hot, dry weather conditions.
Tree watering bags are available from several sources with brand names like “Treegator” and “Oasis”. They can be a savior for absentee landowners.
Lessons learned.
– Anonymous
Our tree expert Carl Mansfield replies:
Several brands of tree watering bags have come onto the market the past few years. Treegator® patented the concept.
Below are pics of the two most popular slow-release tree watering bags available here in Ontario. Prices range from $24.99 for Oasis at CTC to $29.99 for the Treegator Original Tree Watering Bags at Amazon.ca (cheapest price from several suppliers). These bags have a maximum capacity of 20 US gallons (75.7 L) and empty their contents over a 4 – 6 hour period with no run-off or evaporation.
A commonly used formula suggests a recently planted tree needs 10 gallons of water per week for every 1 inch of tree caliper, so be careful not to overfill these bags when watering smaller caliper trees.
OASIS bag available at CTC – photo taken at MLF farm.
TREEGATOR watering bag
And here’s a DIY tree watering option that we have shared with a few MLF customers!
watering trees with buckets
watering trees with buckets
They may not be as aesthetically pleasing as the green tree watering bags but they are as durable, and can have a comparable slow-release rate. With a capacity of 5 US gallons (19 L), a 1 inch caliper tree needs 2 buckets of water per irrigation with the second bucket being placed opposite the trunk position of the first bucket. Material cost – $7.00 per bucket.
APPLY FOR OUR 25% THANK YOU REBATE FOR FALL MAPLE PLANTING
If you are considering planting maples this fall, visit our Nursery Partners page to find a list of nurseries that supply Native Maple trees to the Maple Leaves Forever program. Visit or contact the nursery to confirm the availability of native maples for your tree planting plans.
You may be eligible for our THANK YOU REBATE worth 25% of the cost of the native maples you purchase. Application form and details are available at here.
Rebate Applications for FALL 2017 must be received by October 25, 2017.
Native Red Maple – fall foliage
In the nursery and landscape industry, saying the words “Red Maple” can apply to several distinctly different tree species and the many cultivars developed from these species. The average homeowner can get confused reading the labels tied to the trees at a nursery or garden centre. He just wants a red maple tree that will improve his property’s curb appeal and have attractive fall colours.
“Red Maples” fall into two basic groups. The first grouping is Native Maples consisting of Red Maple and Freeman’s Maple, a lesser known native maple that grows in parts of southern Ontario. Both species have green leaves throughout the summer months and attractive fall foliage with colours ranging from yellows to orange-red and red. The second group is a collection of “red-leaved” cultivars of the non-native Norway maple that have showy burgundy to reddish-purple leaves all summer long. Their fall colour is unimpressive. These groups are distinctly different.
True red maples (Acer rubrum) are impressive shade trees that grow to a height of 16 metres with a spread of 15 meters. Some get much larger. Red maple gets its name from the clusters of small, red buds and flowers that appear on the tree in early spring. The flowers become reddish-green winged fruits (samaras) by early-May. The fruit matures in mid to late-May and is used as a food source by some wildlife.
Mid-summer is the easiest time to tell native red maples from the “red-leaved” non-native maples many people mistakenly think are “red maples”. The leaves of red maples have a blush of red when they start to open in the spring, are green all summer long and turn to shades of yellow, orange and red (sometimes on the same tree), lasting for several weeks in the fall. Red maples are amongst the earliest trees to show colour changes in the fall. In nature, red maple trees vary greatly in fall colouration and intensity.
The nursery industry has developed many Acer rubrum cultivars (Trade names), each with its own distinguishing characteristics of form, growth rate, adaptability to habitat, hardiness and fall leaf colour. Cultivars of red maple are more consistently fall coloured than naturally occurring trees.
Click images below for more information on Native Red Maple trees [or download PDF].
Click image to enlarge
Click image to enlarge
Freeman’s Maple is a lesser known native maple species found growing naturally in parts of southern Ontario and the Lake States. It is a naturally occurring hybrid of two native maple parents – red maple (Acer rubrum) and silver maple (Acer saccharinum). The hybridization takes the best qualities of both parents – the solid structure, attractive form and showy fall colours of red maple and the adaptability and faster growth from the silver maple.
Acer x freemanii prefers moist, acidic soils with good drainage and is more tolerant of high pH soils than native red maple. It is less susceptible to chlorosis symptoms than either red or silver maples. Their green summer leaves change to yellows and red-orange hues in the fall, varying from tree to tree.
Freeman’s Maple is produced as Acer x freemanii cultivars by the nursery industry. Cultivars are grown from cuttings or by grafting (not from seed), producing near identical offspring of the parent tree. They are given Trade names, some have been patented – like Jeffersred Maple, more commonly called Autumn Blaze Maple. Their consistent form, faster growth rate and brilliant orange-red fall colours have made cultivars of Freeman’s Maple popular in the urban landscape.
Every Autumn Blaze Maple will look very much like the parent it originated from, whereas Native Freeman’s Maple trees grown from seedlings planted into nursery fields will have the varying morphological characteristics common to the species.
Click images below for more information on Native Freeman’s Maple trees or [or download PDF].
Click image to enlarge
Click image to enlarge
In the nursery world, many “other Maples” display vivid burgundy, maroon and reddish-purple leaves all summer long. They are called “red-leaved” maples. The most popular variety being “Crimson King” maple, which is not a red maple at all. It is a cultivar of Norway Maple (Acer plantanoides), a European tree that has leaves that look similar to native sugar maple. Crimson King maple was introduced in the US in 1947 as a seedling of A. plantanoides ‘Shwedleri” nigrum.
The brightly coloured leaves begin to unfurl shortly after clusters of yellow flowers appear in spring. The flowers become reddish-purple samaras with horizontally spreading wings by late summer. Crimson King Maples have a dense maroon red foliage all summer. The fall colour is a dull brownish-yellow.
It has a moderate growth rate. Height to 12 meters with a spread of 10 meters.
The seed has a low germinative capacity causing many to consider Crimson King as a potentially less invasive species than its parent – Norway maple.
Click images below for more information on non-native “red-leaved” cultivars of Norway maple [or download PDF].
Click image to enlarge
Click image to enlarge
The “Royal Red” Maple is a more recent cultivar of Norway maple. It is rumoured to be slightly smaller at maturity, a bit faster growing and hardier than the closely related Crimson King. It also has slightly better colour than Crimson King with glossy deep maroon foliage all summer long turning reddish-bronze in the fall. Both varieties provide dense shade, have a straight trunk and a well shaped canopy.
Many other red-leaved Norway maple cultivars are available from your local nursery or garden centre, each with its own landscape potential. They vary in form, growth rate, mature size and seasonal colour characteristics.
Native Red and Freeman’s Maple qualify for Rebate consideration when planted under the provisions of the Maple Leaves Forever “Thank You Rebate” program.
Cultivars developed from Native Maples, non-native maples and their cultivars are not eligible for Rebate consideration.