releasing a maple growing under spruces

9 years ago

The previous owner of my home, in his infinite wisdom, planted a small "forest" of Picea pungens some 40-ish years ago, if I had to guess. Half of them are dead, and most of the rest look pretty bad, getting whatever disease it is that seems to kill all blue spruces after a while.

So my wife and I agreed they've got to go. However, today when I was out there, I noticed that, despite the deep shade under these trees, there are a handful of seedlings and sapling trees under there. Most are maples - Norway maples, in fact, and, since I hate Norways with a passion, they're gone, too. However - one tree is actually a Sugar Maple. It's tall and lanky, about 11 feet tall, but barely an inch caliper. It's sparse, as you'd expect from a tree growing in shade, but it looks pretty healthy and has a nice shape and good strong central leader. It's a tree that seems to be worth saving and is in a good spot for a tree when the spruces are gone.

My question is - if I were to keep this one tree - would it adjust well to suddenly being in full sun and grow well? I mean, would it fill in, lose the lankiness, and start looking more like a tree grown in the open?

Since all the surrounding spruces can be reached from the outside of the little forest, I should be able to fell the spruces with minimal disturbance to the sugar maple tree.

1 - if I do this now - would the sudden transition from cool shade to hot summer sun scorch the tree or damage it? If so - would waiting until fall or winter when the maple is dormant be better?

2 - Will the tree's growth "correct" itself over time, once it's growing out in the open?

3 - any other pointers?

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Comments (7)

Toronado3800 Zone 6 St Louis
9 years ago
I would do it and be prepared to water the sugar maple more this summer. A couple weeks ago when it was cooler out would probably have been best but what can ya do.

That big spruce falling is what this maple has been wishing for its whole life!
hairmetal4ever
9 years ago
That's what happens in nature. Sugar Maples are shade tolerant climax trees, doing basically exactly what you describe - live in the understory, then, when an opening shows, up, they reach for the sky and grow up to the canopy eventually, becoming part of the forest canopy.

I would actually suggest waiting until sometime next spring - around the time of bud swell (probably mid-late April or so in your zone) - and here's why:

That tree's leaves that it has right now are "shade" leaves - they're adapted to shade. No matter how much water you give that tree, those leaves might scorch if suddenly exposed to full sun. Ever move a houseplant from indoors directly to full sun and see the leaves burn/scorch? Same issue here. In theory, you could slowly increase light levels over time by girdling the spruces and letting the needles slowly die and fall off over the summer, then cut them down in fall.

I like spring, however. Sunscald and frost cracking is often a problem with maples, and this little tree's trunk has probably never been exposed to any major degree of winter sun on a cold day, I'd be concerned about that. By first exposing it to the sun in spring, it has a whole summer to acclimate, yet, by doing it before the leaves have emerged from the buds, the new leaves will develop as "sun leaves" instead of shade leaves. Win-win.

The other thing to keep in mind, this tree is used to growing in a very humusy soil with a high amount of organic material from the spruce needles. I'd keep it well mulched and not try to grow lawn around it, at least not for a few years. Not that larger sugar maples are known for letting grass grow under them anyway!

As far as how it will grow, I think after about 2 seasons out in the open, you'll see a significant amount of caliper growth and a denser canopy.
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ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
9 years ago
it would be best to wait until its dormant... unless the tree monkeys can do the job w/o destroying it ...

in the alternative.. you do what you do.. when you need to do it ... and dont be surprised if it sheds all leaves... if the roots dont die.. it will releaf.. its a maple ...

its kinda big ... cant you buy a mail order twig for $20 ... how hard to you want to work for that 20 bucks???

go for it... experiment ... expect failure.. be mildly surprised.. if.. being a maple.. it pulls thru ...

its all about the reality of expectations ...

ken

ps: i dont think i would waste my time.. riddle me this batman ... how do you stake an 11 foot spindly tree??? .. i doubt its going to stand up to wind without its protector ... 100 foot is simply to big for me ... without getting professional help .;..
hairmetal4ever
9 years ago
As an alternative, you could cut all of it, including the maple, and let the stump sprout - at 1" caliper it will almost certainly do so, and retrain a new shoot and new trunk to a sturdier tree.
Smivies (Ontario - 5b)
9 years ago
"As an alternative, you could cut all of it, including the maple, and let the stump sprout - at 1" caliper it will almost certainly do so, and retrain a new shoot and new trunk to a sturdier tree."

This will likely work but is not without risk and requires a lot of faith.

That said, the trunk on your current tree will thicken up quickly anyway once the tree growth accelerates and the wind blows it around a bit.
arktrees
9 years ago
FWIW (not much), I would take a couple out now to increase sunshine (removing maybe a third). Then a bit more to about half removal after the peak of summer. Then the rest in next spring. You need the trunk to thicken so that it can resist the new wind stress. Prob wouldn't hurt to add some loose support for next year once completely free.

As for filling out, it will grow much more typically from this point onward. There may be some new buds sprout from below, but IMHO, few if any. That's just not how SM typically grows even after pruning.

Arktrees
hairmetal4ever
9 years ago
I don't think it would "fill in" new growth inside its "canopy" (if I am picturing this tree correctly, it's probably a skinny trunk with some whiplike side branches, hardly a "canopy"), but the growth from here on out will be denser. Almost at first like a dense "shell" over a rather sparse skeleton. Not a big deal down the road, as the little twiggy branches deep in the canopy of an open grown sapling are never permanent, anyway. It will probably look a bit odd for a couple years, but 5 to 7 years from now, when the tree is 16-20' tall (maybe more, if you have a genetically vigorous grower) and probably 3"+ caliper, it will look fine, IMHO.