Description
Autumn Blaze Maple | Acer x freemanii
PLANTING POINTS: This well-known freemanii Maple has the iconic fiery red fall leaves and vigorous growth rate we all know. It is one of the trees almost every person regardless of tree knowledge has heard of. Most seen in parks and yards with multiple codominant stems it is a wonderful tree that desperately needs our stewardship program to get it off to the right start. Capable of putting on 5-6′ of growth a year as juvenile aggressive pruning will be needed to maintain this tree as it begins to take off. Use this tree to bring rapid shade, beautiful fall color and a reliable specimen.
SITING THIS TREE: It can handle both wet and dry locations but excels in wetter areas where the silver maple root stock can take up lots of water and push topgrowth. In areas with partial shade such as afternoon shade and full morning sun this tree will develop a slightly better branching structure as opposed to the full sun.Furthermore, in some examples where this tree has been planted in nearly full shadeit will have almost a pristine Red Maple branch angle as the forest helps to self-prune this tree. Left to its own devices in the full sun in someone’s yard it will become a multi-stemmed tree with poor branch angles that will tear out in a storm as it reaches a mature height. However, taking care of these trees through our stewardship program and beyond can change the narrative on this tree’s biggest knock of having poor branch structure.
