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Red maples are fast-growing trees that usually reach 60 to 90 feet (18 to 27 meters) in height. The largest ones can grow more than 120 feet (36.5 meters) tall. Red maples are native to the eastern deciduous forest. They’re found from Maine west to Minnesota, south to Texas, and east to Florida.
Are red maples good trees?
The Red Maple tree is a great tree for your yard. With a mature width of 30 feet and height up to 60 feet, this is a good sized shade tree. Be sure to give it plenty of room to thrive.
How fast does a red maple tree grow?
This tree grows at a medium to fast rate, with height increases of anywhere from 13″ to more than 24″ per year.
How do I identify a red maple tree?
Identification of the Red Maple Red Maple leaves generally have three major lobes. The notches or dips between the lobes are V-shaped. The margins of the leaf are toothed. When mature, the leaves are dull green and smooth above, lighter green or silvery beneath and more or less hairy.
What does red maple look like?
Red maple leaves are green on the top and a light greenish white on the underside, and turn brilliant red in autumn. The leaf stalk and twigs also have a reddish color. Flowers: Small, hanging clusters of bright red flowers appear in spring before the leaves. Bark: Young red maples have smooth, light gray bark.
What is red maple used for?
Because of its colorful fall foliage, it is an important ornamental tree, and it is also very important as a food source for wildlife. Red maple wood is used for sawtimber, pulpwood, furniture, veneer, plywood, flooring, and other wood products.
Are red maple trees messy?
Red maple is a fast grower without the bad habits of fast growers. It quickly makes shade without the compromise of becoming brittle and messy. This maple puts on one of the most brilliant displays of any tree in the landscape with a great variety of fall colors with variable intensities.
Do red maples have helicopters?
More commonly referred to as “helicopters,” “whirlers,” “twisters” or “whirligigs,” samaras are the winged seeds produced by maple trees. All maples produce samaras, but red, silver and Norway maples often produce the largest quantities.
Do red maple have invasive roots?
Sugar maple and red maple—the most common large maples—are not considered to have invasive roots. They have moderate root growth and are safe as long as they’re planted thirty or more feet from any structures.
Are red maple trees Hardy?
Red Maple– Hardy to zone 3, the red maple gets its name not just for its brilliant fall foliage, but also for its red stems that keep providing color in winter. It grows 40 to 60 feet (12-18 m.) high and 40 feet (12 m.) Silver Maple– Hardy to zone 3, the undersides of its leaves are silver in color.
Are red maple trees red all year?
The Red Maple (Acer Rubrum) earns its name with its vivid red flowers in early spring, red twigs of new growth, red fruit and brilliant red leaves in the fall.
Which maple tree stays red all year?
Many, but not all, maple trees have their characteristic red leaves year round. The Japanese maple family, which includes six sub-species, is among the most well-known of the perennially red maples.
What’s the difference between a red maple and a silver maple?
The silver maple’s leaves are wider than the red maple’s (5 to 7 inches versus 2 to 6 inches) and have five lobes instead of three. The undersides of the silver maple’s new leaves are silver-white in color, while the red maple’s new leaves have a whitish undertone.
How can you tell a red maple from a sugar maple?
The leaf margins tell the main story: sugar maples have smooth edges while red maples are toothed or serrated. The three lobes of a sugar maple’s leaf are separated by smooth, U-shaped valleys – think U as in sUgar. The red maple’s lobes, meanwhile, are separated by serrated, V-shaped valleys.
Can you get maple syrup from a red maple tree?
Maple syrup can be made from any species of maple tree. Trees that can be tapped include: sugar, black, red and silver maple and box elder trees. Of all the maples, the highest concentration of sugar is found in the sap of the sugar maple.
Is a red maple tree a hardwood?
Maple trees, the domestics here and in Canada, most often are divided into two commercial groups — hard and soft maples. Red maple, also known as Acer rubrum, belongs to the “soft†maple category, although all maples are hardwoods.
Is red maple valuable?
Still considered a relatively high-value tree, red maple lumber is used for flooring, furniture-making and other applications, but sugar maple lumber is generally considered more desirable in appearance and is more valuable.
How strong is red maple wood?
The data from the Janka Hardness Scale is expressed in pounds-force, or lbf. On the Janka Hardness Scale, the Hard Maple hardwood species rating is the highest of all the Maple hardwood species. Hard Maple has a Janka Hardness Scale value of 1,450, while its soft maple relative, the Red Maple, has a rating of 950 lbf.
What eats a red maple?
Wildlife use red maples for food, shade and nesting habitat. Squirrels and other rodents feed on the fruits, while rabbits and deer eat the tender shoots and leaves.
Is red maple good firewood?
Maple is good firewood because it is readily available and it provides good heat. It has a lower density than other hardwoods like Oak, but it is overall a very user friendly firewood to use because it burns clean, splits well and has a great aroma!.
Why are red maples red?
Pigment. The two pigments in maple leaves that make them red in fall are carotenoids and anthocyanins. Carotenoids are always in the leaves and are simply covered by the production of chlorophyll. In fall, as chlorophyll is breaking down, the tree increases the production of the pigment.
