A noun. A verb. A blog.
It was the worst of trees, it was the best of trees. And now my former 90-year-old neighbour is no tree at all. It’s just a stump. Yes, it’s an invasive alien that someone a few generations ago thought would make a great street tree. It did. But Norway maples (Acer platanoides) have also edged […]
As I admired the carpet of maple leaves in my yard (Norway maple leaves, she sighed resignedly), wondering if I had time to haul out my shredder, I noticed something. To be exact, I noticed something that wasn’t there. Can you see it? No tar spots. None. Not anywhere. We first wrote about the disfiguring fungal […]
Hello, I love you, won’t you tell me your name? Of course, I was talking to this beautiful tree in its red cloak, spotted in an East York garden not far from home. Every step slowed as I walked towards it and looked way up. Was it a Freeman maple (Acer x fremanii)? More and more are appearing along Toronto’s […]
Cutleaf Japanese maple (Acer palmatum var. dissectum) Even at dusk. Even with a shaky phone camera. Even in November. The multilayered fall colour on this cutleaf Japanese maple is just otherworldly, like a picture by the Hubble space telescope. I wonder if it might be Acer palmatum ‘Seiryu’ which, according to the Missouri Botanical Garden, […]
During a post-vacation check-up of my heat-challenged, newly planted Japanese maple this morning I spied this pixel-patterned egg mass. Aha! I exclaimed, summoning my vast store of entomological knowledge, Those are definitely the eggs of some kind of insect. No, I’m not an entomologist. But I can be a fairly good detective when it comes […]
Black tar spot of maples (Rhytisma acerinum) is one of the few excuses I can accept for sending your leaves off in the yard waste truck. Toronto gardeners have likely noticed this unsightly fungal disease over the past few years. It manifests as dime- or quarter-sized black spots on leaves, hitting many kinds of maple […]
This story happened in Quebec, but it’s a story that could have happened anywhere with trees. Take one 150-year-old sugar maple tree. Apply wind; lots of wind. Aaaand… oops! Miraculously, this tree-sized branch missed the car, landed on a fence but didn’t crush it, even the birdhouse made it through the branches unscathed. However, the […]
Sarah and I do gripe and moan and complain about the Norway maples (Acer platanoides) we’re each forced to share our gardens with. In the city’s urban forest, Norway maples represent 26% of Toronto’s street tree population; likely higher in the old city of Toronto (as it was before amalgamation). That’s not counting the volunteer […]
In Toronto, the blooming of the silver maple, Acer saccharinum, is a true sign of spring. Yet most people don’t even notice the modest little pompom flowers because they’re way up there on some of the city’s tallest street trees. When it’s not in leaf, you can recognize the mature silver maple by its shaggy […]
One of the first of the big trees to bloom in spring around here, usually around March, is the native Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum). These nubbly buds, which will open to reveal some of the least showy of the maple flowers, were photographed in our neighbourhood less than a week ago, before Spring officially arrived. […]
This is a phrase that my dad used to say a lot, as in: “Don’t worry about me, I’m as tough as old boots.” And this descriptor popped into my head while walking through my fall garden this morning. I realized I have a few plants that should be placed in this new category. Plants […]
Meet the bane of my existence right now: a forest of Norway maple seedlings. The conditions must have been so right for maple seed germination this year. In all my years gardening under Norway maples (Acer platanoides), I’ve never seen such an abundance. A veritable pro-leaferation! If they were worth money, I’d be a gazillionaire. […]