Mountain maple enchants a garden

Known as mountain maple in the Great Smokies of Tennessee and North Carolina, where it grows as a 30-foot tree, Acer spicatum is often reduced by deer and moose browsing to a large multistemmed shrub in New England forests, hence the alternate common names of moose maple and low maple. Yet another common name, water maple, refers to its mountain habitat, described by Donald Culross Peattie as “the neighborhood of white and singing water.”

In Maine, I have found examples of both growth habits, tree form and shrubby. My introduction to the species was a lovely, small tree growing in the shade of tall pines at a site near Boothbay, where a former student and I were collecting data for her research project. It was near dusk and the small maple was in full flower, the upright spikes of greenish-yellow flowers making candelabras of the horizontal branches.

I was so enchanted by the tree that I returned later with the intent of collecting seed, only to find the tree nearly destroyed by timber harvesters dragging pine logs out of the woods. Just one of the original three trunks had survived to mature a handful of seeds on its branches. I collected these seeds and successfully produced seedlings, one of which now grows at the back of Marjorie’s garden.

Mountain maple is easily grown from seed, either sown outside in fall or stratified in the refrigerator for three to four months followed by spring sowing. Considering the scarcity of this species in nurseries and garden centers, growing your own from seed may be the only way to bring this lovely maple from woods to garden.

Mountain maple deserves to be more frequently grown in shady gardens. In June, its shoot tips are graced with long-stemmed upright spikes of chartreuse flowers that glow like candles in the understory. Small two-winged samaras (seeds) ripen over summer to red or yellow before they are carried off on autumn winds as the leaves turn to yellow, orange and scarlet. In shrubby forms, bright red young twigs poke through the winter snow.

An inhabitant of beech-maple-hemlock woods and hemlock ravines, mountain maple demands shade. Scorching of the leaves and the thin bark occurs when it is exposed to full sun, a trait which it shares with another eastern boreal maple, striped maple (A. pensylvanicum). A sheltered location protects the weak wood of both species from damage by wind.

Mountain maple is not tolerant of urban stresses, such as soil compaction and pollution. It is intolerant of flooding and its shallow roots, seldom more than a few inches below the soil surface, make it very susceptible to drought. On the plus side, it can be grown from USDA Zone 2 to the mountains of Zone 7 and it has no serious insect or disease pests. Both mountain maple and striped maple are among the most resistant of all maples to attack by the Gypsy moth.

Europeans have long recognized the garden worth of this small maple, first introduced in 1775 and again in 1905. Like many gardeners in the United States today, they had a penchant for the exotic. For many of us, however, there is growing interest in sustainable managed landscapes that express the uniqueness of native flora. Plants like mountain maple have come into their own.

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