TheMondayGarden.com

Eco-gardening is at its best in The Monday Garden
May 11, 2003, issue 59

Maples are my quintessential summer shade tree, the autumn colors are to-die-for, and I take their pictures all winter, but, ah, maples in spring. The glowing seeds of a native red maple reflected in Stamford's Mill River mark the beginning of May.

In Southern New England, we are blessed with native red, silver, and sugar maples. We also enjoy the mixed blessing of the immigrant Norway and Japanese maples. The easiest way to tell the maples apart is to watch them flower in spring.

The Monday Garden, October 16, 2004, Issue 134
Eco-gardening at its best
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Admit it, maple trees are interesting. There’s the family drama of the reds (Issue 85) and the silvers (Issue 115) who do so much for our wildlife; and the sugars (Issue 35) who provide a valuable food as well as breath-taking beauty. Then there are the Norways (Issue 133) and other foreign maples that that threaten our native plants (and your lawn).

picture: sugar maple Hillandale Ave, Stamford CT October 2004

There are about 14 North American native maples-- few enough to know them all personally. The major ones in the Northeast are the sugars (Acer saccharum), reds (Acer rubrum) (also called “swamp maple”), and slivers (Acer saccharinum). In addition to the Norways (Acer platanoides), the common imported maples include the Japanese (Acer palmatum, Acer japonicum, etc.), sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) (not the native tree know as “sycamore” – but a type of maple), and amur (Acer ginnala). Maples are prolific and cross-breed so there is always a bit of individual variation between trees, making the identification an interesting challenge but not so hard that it has to be left to experts.

Because the maples have cross-over characteristics, it’s always best to use at least two features to confirm identification. Each maple had at least one characteristic that’s unique to it.