Posts

Showing posts with the label maple trees

Silver Maple Volunteer Seeding Gains Five Feet of New Growth This Summer - August 2023

Image
We might have a problem in the garden.  Or, we might have something else totally.  I'm talking about the volunteer Silver Maple tree that popped up last season and one that I have left alone all this year.  Has it grown?  Yeah.  It.has.grown.  A LOT. I last posted about this tree in mid-July (about 50 days ago) and it has not slowed down since then.  I mentioned in that post that I was guessing it had put on 3' of new growth this year.  Now?  I'd say it is more like five feet of new growth.  It is every bit as tall as the Exclamation London Planetrees that sit by the fence .  Below, is a look at the current state of this (questionable-in-value) tree that is in our south beds: I didn't plan for this tree.  And...I've read all about the merits of Silver Maples.   Naturalist Donald Peattie wrote an length about the Silver Maple and called it a paradox . Both the pros - fast-growing, beautiful crowns and ability to grow in hard-to-grow spots and their cons - it gets

Silver Maple Volunteer Tree - Maple Tree Identification - July 2023

Image
Last year, I let this Maple tree volunteer seedling just go .  It grew up and up and I ended up protecting it via a chicken wire ring during the Winter.    It came back this year and has put on a ton of new growth on the leader.  SO....I figured it was time to try to figure out what variety of Maple/Acer I was dealing with in the garden.  I went out and looked the foliage and then started to look around - and it was a quick Web stroll to figure out that I'm dealing with a Silver Maple.    Below are two photos of the top and bottom of the leaf - and there are two tells here.    At least...I'm about 75% confident that this is, indeed, a Silver Maple. The Chicago Botanic Garden has this listing up for Silver maple (Acer saccharinum) that details those two tells that are visible in the photos above: The silver maple is a North American native and best known for providing us with maple syrup. The leaves have the classic maple leaf shape and become brilliant yellow and red-orange in

Grinding the Stump Out - Norway Maple Tree - October 2022

Image
Earlier this week, I shared photos (and a video) of the removal of our large, 70-year-old Norway Maple that was situated right in front of our wrap-around front porch.  This tree was an important landscape feature for our home - we site'd the house back purely to SAVE this tree.  But, it had to go.  That removal and subsequent processing into rounds for splitting was phase one of the project.  Phase two is to remove the stump.  A few days after they removed the tree, the team came back with a giant machine to grind the stump.  The drove the machine up front the front and started to grind the stump down.  See below for a look at the start of the stump grinding: Here, below, is a close-up look at how the machine grinds down the stump into shredded wood.  The operator ground down the stump about 24" in total depth. Stump grinder removing a Norway Maple stump The whole process didn't take long - maybe 20 minutes of grinding.  Here, below, is a video showing how far and fast t

Norway Maple Tree Removal - Illinois - October 2022

Image
The day finally arrived.  A day that I have not been looking forward to in the life of our property.  That day is the day that our large, mature Norway Maple tree that was located just outside of our front porch came down.  This tree was a lovely tree.  Lived a good life.  We moved the location of our house foundation specifically so we could try to keep this tree.  But, it still needed to come down. I foretold the removal of this magnificent tree just last month when I posted about the continued decline of the tree .  In mid/late September, we had an early evening storm and lost another large limb.  Dare I say...a 'widow maker' came down.    It wasn't as if we didn't try to save this tree.  In fact, we surely didn't want to remove it.  But, it seemed liked it was necessary as the limbs kept falling and I began to become worried that it would fall on my house.  Or, my neighbor's house. Over the years, we've worked this tree.  Gave it a growth regulator in Se

Norway Maple Tree - In Decline - September 2022

Image
After years of fighting to try to keep our large, signature front-yard Norway Maple tree alive, we've made the difficult decision to have it removed.  We tried everything - giving it a growth regulator , feeding it, pruning it.  But, the tree continues to decline.  Every time we experience a storm of any meaning, we lose a limb .   I'm having a few firms come out to give us a price, but within a couple of weeks, this tree will no longer be gracing our front yard.  I'm not quite sure that I've come to grips with the size of the impact the removal will have on our landscape, but I know it will be massive.   My brain already moves to thinking about what to replace it with - and if we can get the replacement in the ground this Fall.  My normal move for tree planting is to find SMALL trees that can handle the transplant, but this location calls for something else - something larger - as an investment.  That way, we can enjoy the tree WHILE we live here.   I'm also thinki

Two Volunteer Tree Seedlings - Backyard Bed - September 2022

Image
I have had various volunteer trees take off in different parts of our garden over the years.  The American Elm pops up EVERYWHERE .  The Chicago Blues Black Locust does, too .  I've talked about how I have Catalpa seedlings (or what I think are Catalpa seedlings) in different spots of the front and backyard.  For the most part, I rub or rip out the little seedlings before they can become anything of signficance.   However, there have been a couple of tiny seedlings in the southside backyard bed that I've been watching for the past few months, wondering what they'd become and if they were worth nurturing.  Before we went into Fall, I wanted to document here in the [tree diary] both of these trees as they are currently standing. First up is a Maple tree.  This Maple (unknown cultivar) is growing up right behind the Fanal Astilbes on the southside.  It is about 24" tall, has a strong central leader and is throwing off a LOT of healthy, green foliage.  See below for two p

Growth Regulator Applied to Trees - Large Maple and Large Oak - September 2020

Image
Earlier this year, I posted a photo showing some of the canopy deterioration of the Norway Maple in our front yard - right outside of our front porch.  The tree seems to be suffering from some damage due to construction and digging around the roots.  We specifically moved the house back to save this tree, so seeing the parts of the tree going dead has me concerned.  Then in August, I posted a photo of a large limb that went down during the Derecho storm .  So, it was time to call in the experts.   I had an arborist from Davey come out and give us a plan to help this tree.  And one in the back.  It includes a pruning in late Fall/early Winter once the tree has shed all of it's leaves.  But, it also includes a three year growth regulator treatment.   In the photo below, you can see the technician boring holes in and around the base of the tree where he was set to apply the growth regulator called Cambistat .   He mixed up a container for our front yard Norway Maple (21") and o

Front Yard Maple Lost a Limb - August 2020

Image
During that Summertime Derecho storm earlier this week, we had some significant damage to one of our front yard trees - the Norway Maple that is right outside of our front porch.  This is the same tree that I posted a photo of earlier this Summer when I spotted some bare spots in the canopy .  I took the photo above while the storm was going on and right after my neighbor texted me that the tree was dropping branches. This was - in my mind - the 'good side' of the tree, so that's unfortunate.  But, this dropped straight down.  Didn't hit our house, roof, gutter, porch and caused no damage.  So, I'm thankful for that.  And the cleanup wasn't too much.  My neighbor Matt was kind enough to come out and bring his chainsaw to help me cut this up into segments that were manageable in terms of removing and cleaning up. We ended up with a little bit of firewood that I'll put out on the pile in the back to season for a more than a year (thinking it will be re

Front Porch Maple - Trouble Spot In The Canopy

Image
We positioned our house back about 15 feet from what the front-yard setback minimum in an attempt to preserve this Maple tree.  There is a dead spot in the canopy now - on the southside of the tree that I wanted to document here in the garden diary in an attempt to see if it is worsening or if the tree has stabilized.  I don't remember this dead spot being present last year, but I didn't document it, so I am unsure.  I'll be watching this tree closely to see if we need to call in an expert.

Our Parkway Maple Tree: Spring Color

Image
When we had our house built back in 2016/2017, one of the steps was the digging and installation of new sewer and water lines.  That required some serious digging from the center of the street all the way up to our house.  That digging was located fairly close to our large parkway tree - in fact it was so close that when we came to see the hole, we could see that the sewer guys had cut some of the roots.   Ever since then, I've been holding my breath with concern that the tree had suffered some damage.   I'm posting this in the [ garden dairy ] so I remember both what the canopy looks like in Spring but also what the color of the leaves look like, too.   Here, below, is the tree.  It is orange-ish/brown-ish.  Certainly NOT green like the rest of the maple trees around our neighborhood.   And, I'm content this year because I noticed the same thing last year.  This tree isn't suffering/stressed (at least I'm pretty sure it isn't), rather this is *

What about a Japanese Maple Tree?

Image
Over the past few years, I've posted a few times about Japanese-inspired gardening and how I'm increasingly drawn to it for various reasons.  I spent a bit of time walking around Gotenyama Gardens in Tokyo and as I walked down the steps into the kind-of sunken garden, I was surrounded by a lush garden in the middle of a metropolitan city.   And that fascination with Japanese gardens has manifested itself in a couple of things, but mostly columnar trees .  But, there are other elements that I've talked about including ferns and this Japanese Forest Grass , too.  One of the types of tree that I don't seem to have covered at all here on the blog is a Japanese Maple tree.  I've seen them at the garden center over the past few years and they're always tempting (and pricey), but I didn't know too much about them to ever make a decision on them.  This Winter, I started to poke around them as thinking about this part of our yard and wanted to get a little bit smar

Front Yard And Parkway Tree Planning - 2019/2020

Image
As part of my 2020 prep for the yard , my mind has started to wandering to tree planting and specifically thinking about tree planting in the front yard and parkway.   Above is a schematic that shows off some of the existing trees and my current (aspirational) thinking of what sort of moves I could make in 2020.  But, before I jump into the specifics of that drawing up above, let's look at the current situation. Let's start with our parkway tree situation.  Below is a shot from Google Streetview that shows off our one large Norway Maple parkway tree, the location of the 'old driveway' and this other tree that is just behind the sidewalk that I'm pretty sure is a Mulberry tree.  This Streetview image is a few years old and is of the house that was on site BEFORE we built, but the driveway location is pretty close to where the current driveway is located.  You can see the stretch of parkway between the driveway and the large Maple tree.  Keep that thought for a mo