How To Plant Maple Trees From Seed
- Thomas Nelson
- March 31, 2020
- Nature
- 0 Comments
Maple trees come in all shapes and sizes, from dwarf Japanese maples to towering Humboldt Honey maples. Maple trees generally have deep green or red summertime foliage and burst into beautiful red, purple, golden, and yellow autumn leaves. You may be wondering how to plant maple trees from seed so you can grow some at your own home. It’s not very difficult, but it is an involved process.
How to plant maple trees from seed
Depending on the type of maple tree you’re planning to plant, the seeds will either mature and fall from the trees sometime between spring to late fall. Once you’ve collected healthy, intact maple seeds, you’ll need to put them through a process called cold stratification. Cold stratification is a trick that convinces your seeds that they’ve survived through a winter and it’s now time to grow.
Cold stratification is easy. All you need to do is wrap your seeds in a most cloth or even peat moss, place them in a plastic bag, and allow them to sit for 2-3 months in your refrigerator.
Once their cold stratification period has ended, plant the seeds in a pot with high quality, organic potting soil and keep in a warm, sunny location. Keep the soil most at all times.
How to plant maple trees outside
Generally, the best time to plant maple trees outdoors is during fall, provided the ground has not yet frozen. Choose a location ideally with full sun and well-drained, loamy soil.
Dig a hole as deep as your trees container and two to three times wider than the pot your tree is currently growing in. Remove your tree from its pot and place in the hole. Be sure that the trunk of your tree is perfectly even with the ground. If you bury the stem of your sapling too deeply, it can cause the trunk to rot.
Fill in the hole with the soil you dug out to begin with. Be sure the soil is tamped down and air pockets have been forced out. At this point, let nature take its course. You can set up a barrier around your tree to help prevent damage over fall and winter, but it’s not required.
How far apart should maples be planted
The general rule of thumb for maple tree planting distance is 25 feet apart, but some maples grow considerably larger than others, so additional research will be needed to determine the ideal distance between each tree. Keep in mind, your trees would prefer full sunlight and well-drained, loamy soil.
How fast do maple trees grow
The quickness to maturity for a maple tree varies from species to species. Some will take as many as 30 years to reach full size. Others as few as 10 years to reach maturity. A red maple tree will grow 1-2 feet each year once it’s established.
How long do maples live?
The lifespan of a maple tree depends largely upon where it was planted and what type of maple you planted. A red maple tree has an average lifespan of 130 y ears. Silver maples live for about 100 years. Sugar maples can live up to 400 years. Urban trees, on average, have shorter lifespans.
What are the best maples for fall colors?
It’s hard to pick out a single maple tree as the best tree for fall foliage, but you have lots of options depending on what color you like to see.
Autumn blaze maples live up to their name by exploding into a fiery red color in the autumn, as do Red sunset maples. Sugar maple trees, which are famous for their sugary sweet sap that can be made into syrup, turn yellow and orange in the autumn.
If you enjoy yellow fall leaves, silver maples are a good choice to you, but many growers warn that the yellow can be pale and unattractive. Hedge maples may produce a more reliable yellow fall foliage.
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