How to plant Red Maple (Acer rubrum)? Latest planting techniques and methods tutorial
Red Maple (Acer rubrum) is a plant of the genus Acer in the family Aceraceae, also known as Canadian red maple. It is native to the East Coast of the United States and is a large deciduous tree. It grows relatively fast; a mature tree reaches 12-18 m in height with a crown spread of 12 m, and it can adapt to a wide range of soil types. It blooms in spring, with red flowers. Because of its striking autumn colors and neat crown, it is widely used for planting in parks, residential communities and along streets. It can serve both for landscape gardening and as a street tree, and is deeply loved by people. It is one of the ideal rare tree species introduced in recent years for beautifying and greening urban landscapes.
Ecological characteristics
It likes water and fertilizer, tolerates low temperatures (around minus 40°C), and tolerates saline-alkaline soil. It grows fastest in the Shandong Peninsula and Rizhao areas, which is consistent with the latitude in North America, and the climatic and temperature conditions are basically the same. Its annual growth reaches 80-120 cm, and its autumn color change is the most prominent and the most uniform.
Main traits
It can reach up to 30 m in height with a crown spread of 10 m. The leaves are palmately 3-5 lobed, with a leaf length of 10 cm. The upper leaf surface is bright green, and the underside is whitish, with some having white down. In spring, the new leaves turn reddish, contrasting beautifully with the clusters of red flowers; in summer, the branches and leaves form shade; in autumn, the leaves turn a brilliant red that lasts a long time. The tree form is upright, and the crown is round. It produces small red flowers in spring, and the fruit is winged and red. This tree species grows rapidly and is the fastest-growing variety among all red maple cultivars.
Habit characteristics
It has strong adaptability and is cold-tolerant, drought-tolerant and moisture-tolerant. The climates of Beijing, Hebei, Shandong, Liaoning, Jilin, Henan, Shaanxi, Anhui, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Yunnan, Sichuan, Xinjiang and other places in China are all suitable. Every autumn, the pure improved red maple can stably display a brilliant red-leaf effect, and acidic to neutral soil makes the autumn color even more vivid.
Seedling-raising techniques
1. Nursery site selection and treatment: For raising Red Maple seedlings, choose slightly acidic, moist, well-drained sandy loam with good irrigation conditions. Before sowing, apply 5000 kg of organic fertilizer and 50 kg of NPK compound fertilizer per mu. To prevent seedling diseases and insect pests, especially underground pests, use 8-10 kg of ferrous sulfate and 2 kg of phoxim granules per mu, mix them evenly with fine soil, spread on the soil surface, then carry out deep plowing, harrowing, leveling and bed making. The bed width should be 1 m, the bed ridge width 30 cm, and the bed length 20-30 m.
2. Seed treatment, sowing time and method: Red Maple seeds have no dormancy, so they can be sown in either autumn or spring. Here we mainly introduce spring sowing. The sowing time is preferably from mid-March to mid-April. Before sowing, first mix the seeds evenly with moist sand at a ratio of 1:3 and place them under 3-5°C conditions for one month of low-temperature sand storage treatment. During stratification, check and manage regularly. If germinating seeds are found, sow them promptly. When sowing, first irrigate the bed thoroughly with bottom water, and sow after the water has seeped down. The sowing rate is about 200 seeds per sq m. After sowing, cover with 0.5 cm of fine soil. To preserve soil moisture, raise soil temperature, and make the seeds sprout early and evenly, cover with plastic film or a small arched shed. The arched shed should be ventilated, and shading should be provided appropriately when the midday temperature exceeds 30°C. Generally, the seedlings emerge completely about 15-20 days after sowing.
3. Seedling-stage management and growth: After the seedlings emerge, their early growth is relatively slow and their resistance is poor, so they should be sprayed with water frequently to maintain soil moisture, and weeds should be removed promptly. When hoeing weeds, cultivate the soil promptly and try to mound up more soil to prevent lodging. When the seedlings reach 5 cm in height, thin them to a set spacing, generally after thorough irrigation, removing weak, diseased and small seedlings at a plant spacing of 10-15 cm to keep the seedlings robust and uniform. Where seedlings are missing, choose a rainy day to transplant seedlings with soil balls to fill the gaps. In early June, apply urea as a top dressing together with watering, at 15 kg per mu; in mid-July, apply another 10-15 kg of urea per mu as a top dressing, and appropriately control water later. If pests such as slug moths are found, spray 2.5% deltamethrin 4000-fold solution for control.
In the same year, the seedlings can reach 1-1.5 m in height, and they can be transplanted separately in the spring of the second year.