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Silver Maple
Although they abound all over Greensboro, there are plenty of reasons never to plant silver maples. First, they have shallow roots that grow in a web like pattern close to the soil making it almost impossible to grow anything else underneath them. These Silver Maple roots like to grow these upward appendages to test the horsepower of any lawnmower, and break the toes of children running at dusk catching fireflies. Second, their limbs are brittle, so just when you think you’ve grown this perfectly shaped tree along comes a good ice storm and “pop” pop” “pop,” there goes half the tree, and the rest looks like it’s been caught between the Confederate and Union armies. And to make matters worse, third (and remember this is a maple tree), it isn’t even pretty in the fall. The leaves turn a dull yellow and quickly leaves shrivel up and fall. So, all in all, a worthless tree, right?
Well. Not so fast. Let’s look at some of the virtues of this most common of maples. First, it grows quickly, and can turn a shade-less desert of a newly developed housing tract into a sea of green faster than almost any other tree. Not only do they grow fast in the first place, they recover fast, and that ice storm war ravaged tree you can hardly bear to look at will fill out and look practically normal in a couple of seasons. Second, though it is hard to grow much under Silver Maples, fescue grasses can make it under them, and as long as you mow regularly the root bumps should never seriously bother your mower. As to stumping your toes – well, that’s a problem! Third, as to fall colors, there is no denying it, Silver Maples are boring. BUT, and here is the “silver” lining in this drab cloud – the Silver Maple offers its own kind of color all summer long. Let me explain.
To do so, let me describe the Silver Maple leaf. The leaves of the Silver Maple, like all maples, are lobed, and come of the twigs and branches opposite each other, that is, in opposite pairs. The Silver Maple leaf is large, up to 6-7 inches long, and has five distinct lobes, and the gaps or notches between the lobes are deep. The edges of the Silver Maple leaves are raggedy or notched. It is a very distinctive leaf. What makes the Silver Maple leaf, and thus the Silver Maple tree beautiful throughout the summer, is the fact that the underside of the leaf is whitish in color. Add to this the fact that the leaves are suspended on long flattened stalks, and it causes the leaves to twist and turn in the breeze. Normally such twisting and turning wouldn’t be worth mentioning, but when a gust of wind sweeps across a Silver Maple, the leaves flip showing their white undersides, which creates an effect of a wave of white sweeping across the tree (just imagine tree leaves doing “the wave” in a baseball stadium). Now you’re driving down a suburban road or country lane lined with silver maples on a warm dry summer afternoon with a storm approaching, with the gusts of wind causing the sweeping wave of white up and down the street, and it catches your breath, like you’re out on the prairie or standing near a wheat field watching as a storm approaches. It’s magical. And to me, it more than makes up for the sorry show of color in the fall!
But I’m not done with the virtues of this common tree. As Silver Maples age their trunks get scraggly and flaky, which gives it character and a beauty unmatched by other maple tree trunks. The trunk is particularly notable in winter. As Silver Maples age, the lower limbs tend to sweep out and downward though turning up at the ends, even as the higher limbs lift upward. There is a dignity to the shape of the tree not broken by ice storms, And though the Silver Maple leaves fall to the ground dried out and shriveled, they are unusually ready to be tilled into the ground or mixed with late fall clippings in a compost pile. And finally, the Silver Maple is one of our very first beacons of Spring, blooming in February in these parts. Their flowers are not bold and red as their cousin the red maple, but are rather a non descript yellowish green, yet one can easily see even from a distance as the buds swell begin to flower. It is not very long before there is fruit and the fruit is perhaps the very first fruit of the growing season for the wild animals to enjoy, maturing before many other trees have even begin to flower.
So let’s hear it for the lowly Silver Maple! |
