Maples pay a price for spring color...

This has been a spring to remember if you live in the northeastern United States. March broke high temperature records causing spring flowering bulbs and trees to bloom almost a month early. April was drier than normal and alternated between warm days and freezing nights. then as our native trees greened up, they morphed into a rainbow of color! In addition to the normal soft greens of spring, a cheery red appeared against blue skies.

While we expect an array of color in autumn, bright red maples in spring demanded a closer look. Anticipating I'd find tiny red flowers (though a bit confused because I know maples normally flower with the daffodils in our area), I was surprised to see that the red coloring was due to a heavy crop of samaras or seeds - aka "helicopters". Closer inspection of the maple in my front yard revealed the same thing, only in green.

I spent a couple of weeks blissfully enjoying the view until I was reminded that there will be consequences. I remembered fielding calls about "sick maple trees" in mid-summer years ago. People were concerned because their trees were thin on top and appeared to be dying. The trees had produced so many seeds in the spring that they didn't have enough energy left to produce a full leaf canopy. This was not an insect or disease issue (and trees weren't dying), but rather the result of perfect weather for maple seed production.

So is there anything we can or should do? Not right now - except to hope we don't get a secondary stress this summer. If the weather turns dry this summer and you can provide water to a specimen tree, do it. Most importantly, fight the urge to fertilize until the fall. Doing so now or during the summer will actually make things worse, though a little fertilizer this fall will give your tree a head start for next year.

Meanwhile, I'm going to enjoy the flight of the samaras that I know is coming while I add an extra cleaning of my rain gutters to my summer "to do" list.

Spring color as trees leaf out - April 2012

Red Samaras

Green Samaras