Plant Library

Other Names:  Hard Maple, Rock Maple

Description:

A tightly columnar selection with decent fall color, makes a great articulation tree for specific applications; suitable for small home landscapes; adaptable to soils, but dislikes air pollution and compaction

Ornamental Features

Columnar Sugar Maple is primarily valued in the landscape for its rigidly columnar form. It has dark green deciduous foliage. The lobed leaves turn outstanding shades of orange and red in the fall.

Landscape Attributes

Columnar Sugar Maple is a dense deciduous tree with a narrowly upright and columnar growth habit. Its average texture blends into the landscape, but can be balanced by one or two finer or coarser trees or shrubs for an effective composition.

This is a relatively low maintenance tree, and should not require much pruning, except when necessary, such as to remove dieback. It has no significant negative characteristics.

Columnar Sugar Maple is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• Vertical Accent
• Hedges/Screening

Planting & Growing

Columnar Sugar Maple will grow to be about 40 feet tall at maturity, with a spread of 12 feet. It has a low canopy with a typical clearance of 4 feet from the ground, and should not be planted underneath power lines. It grows at a slow rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live to a ripe old age of 100 years or more; think of this as a heritage tree for future generations!

This tree should only be grown in full sunlight. It prefers to grow in average to moist conditions, and shouldn't be allowed to dry out. It is not particular as to soil pH, but grows best in rich soils. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution. This is a selection of a native North American species.