Nothing needs to be done for the health of the plants at this time. The Blue Spruce is still dense. Eventualy the maple will likely over grow the spruce and cause it to thin out on the side facing the maple. David

The maple tree appears to be growing with too tight of crotch angles. Right now it seems harmless, with a nice canopy, but the taller it grows the more of a potential problem it will become, and the more expensive it will be to have it removed.

Then again the spruce tree appears to have reached its maximum allowable spread, considering how close it already has spread toward the drive. Given time, doesn't this evergreen tree have the potential to continue growing more tall and spread almost double its current width.

This spruce does appear to be healthy, and if you do not want to loose it, then you might consider moving it. I do not know if it will survive a transplant, if you find that it does have a good chance to survive transplanting, then you could move it to an area where, once it reestablishes itself, it has room to keep spreading.

mid-Winter might be the best time for moving that tree if you choose to do that.

I do not know how tall your maple tree has the potential to grow. It does not look like the bark is peeling, so I guess it is not a Paperbark maple. Why else would some one let a maple tree grow with so many trunks. That is unless it is a Japanese maple. If it is a mature Japanese maple tree, then leave it as is. If not and if the Maple has the potential to grow 2 to 3 times larger than it currently is, then I think it should be removed now and you should have its roots ground.

first.. explain your need to have them never touching each other?????

you actually paid money to trim them from not touching?????

if you NEED for them to never touch .. then yes.. one has to go ...

NEVER 'top' or in your case 'side' a tree or conifer .... its not healthy ...

in the glare in the picture.. i think i see power lines... if either plant is within 20 feet of the lines.. you ought to use that info in your consideration of what to do with them ...

i hate maples [cant grow anything under them].. and if one has to go .. i vote the maple ... but you already cut on the picea pungens .... bummer

maybe they both have to go .... and start with a clean slate ....

ken

I had the Maple trimmed slightly where the two touch, not the Spruce.

My first concern is that the health of the trees is not impacted by the overlap. Second, I do not like the aesthetics of the Spruce being thinned out and misshapen by the Maple. They "feel" crowded the way they are right now. Third, I am planting new beds in the front yard around both trees and would like to know if one tree will have to go soon so I can plan my plantings accordingly.

My wife loves the Maple as it has lots of fall color, but I could go either way. Both trees provide lots of privacy and shade for our house.

How much could it cost to transplant the Spruce? I can't imagine that would be cheap.

Any other thoughts?

If they were my trees, I think I'd lose the spruce as it already appears to be steering away from the maple and the maple has a nice form. Though I see the other posters' point about the narrow crotch angles, the crown of this tree is beautiful and I see no reason why it shouldn't remain healthy and sturdy (and in one piece) for many years.

It looks as though the previous owner of the house, or maybe even the one before that, succumbed to the syndrome of but-they're-so-small-now-surely-they-can-go-next-to-each-other, and planted these two then-small one to 5 gallon trees in close proximity, either not realizing or ignoring the mature heights and widths.

I think you need to bite the bullet and take down the spruce. As noted above, the maple is overgrowing it, and the evident deformity will only get worse with time. If you need the screening that it provides, you can plant either evergreen shrubs, or, if mostly needed in summer, deciduous shrubs or some of the taller grasses in its place. As also noted above, it is starting to get dangerously close to the pavement, and will start growing out into it in the next few years, and then need trimming.

Just keep in mind that the same way you are wondering about the potential huge expense it could cost to safely and correctly transplant the evergreen at the size it currently has grown; it will be even more expensive to deal with the maple tree, if you wait for the many years when it will be clearly too unsafe if you do not remove it considering the weak crotch angles currently seen in that tree.

Of course this all depends on how tall that tree has the potential to grow over those years. That is why you need to determine what kind of Maple tree it is.

Yes the crown right now is very beautiful, even before it shows its wonderful fall color change. So it is easy to see why you and your DW do not want to rush and get rid of it. That is why I am stressing find out the maples growth potential, and then choose, do you need to "bite the bullet" now and do what needs to be done, or will it be of no consequence over the many years down the road and are you certain that this maple should never grow large and massive enough so that there is no doubt of it never needing to be removed. Thus removing any concern over the escalating cost for removing such a tree.

Paper Bark or Japanese maple trees, yes, could remain with out much consequence growing with such tight crotch angles in the branches. I highly doubt, though, many if any other type of maple could be considered to have the potential to grow safely in the form your photo reveals your maple to be growing.

I vote for the maple to come down, but then I tend to prefer conifers. Unless of course you have 3 or 4 more Colorado Blue Spruce in the back yard, in which case you might leave the maple for variety. Which one is the most stunning for your yard and for the neighborhood?

Since the spruce is on its way to bulging out over the drive it should be the one to come up. If the maple is a Norway maple it is not large as far as it goes and will become much bigger in time, so that eventually even that will begin to seem rather close to the drive.

As Norway maple is a big and dense tree often producing a large bare area beneath its branches, and is also a vicious pest species in northern North America it might be as well to remove both and start over with a small-growing tree in the middle of the bed. In USDA 7 you should have numerous kinds of these to choose from. If able to get down there sometime the US National Arboretum in Washington will surely have something on display that appeals.

Maybe a combination like a small-growing magnolia surrounded by low, shrubby kinds of hollies would be the ticket.

Here is a link that might be useful: Handsome Hollies and Magnificent Magnolias - The Perfect Match

If this were a forest they would probably grow much closer than this. Leave it be...doesn't seem to be anything in the way other than the lines...am I right?

I don't disagree with anything that has been said in the above responses. I would just add that there is nothing imperative about taking either down. I do share your preference for conifers in yards not to be crowded too much by other trees. In my view, you could just live with things the way they are for some years to come, perhaps continuing to lightly keep the maple off the spruce. There's nothing inherrently wrong with this. If I was bound and determined to head off any potential conflict and/or greater future expense, then I would remove the maple. But I am definitely biased in favor of conifers.

+oM

You mentioned something earlier about the shade these trees provide as being an asset.

Why not plant a better tree now to grow in the area which will be able to begin establishing and growing well soon after that?

At least if you do that, then, when you become faced with the inevitable time when these trees will have to be removed, you at least then would have another well established and already on its way to becoming a better shade provider for the house.

I would take out the spruce. It's deformed -- like someone took a scoop out of it. It will never grow into the normal cone. The maple looks beautiful -- and it provides shade.

But whatever you choose, one ought to go. The two shapes don't compliment each other at all and they look wrong so close together. The maple by itself becomes something beautiful.

If you remove the Spruce, you will also be removing the competion that has prevented the maple from maturing at a faster rate. Remove that competion, and I guarantee you that the Maple tree will take off and grow tremenously faster than you have ever seen it do in the past.

That is, of course, only if the tree is not some cultivar of fairly tall growing Japanese maple, which has already, nearly reached its tallest height and spread potential.

Can anyone ID the Maple?

Here are more pics:
{{gwi:403933}}
{{gwi:403934}}
{{gwi:403935}}
{{gwi:403936}}

Japanese maple.

If it a large Japanese Maple cultivar then it probably has maxed out its size already, right?

I have seen several Japanese maple cultivars which can reach 15 - 25 feet tall. Bloodgood is one like that, but yours does not seem to be that cultivar.

I agree that the leaves do look a lot like some of the larger growing JMs cultvars I Have seen.

Guess if you cannot tell what cultivar your tree is, and from that determine if it has maxed out its height potential; then you will know if you remove the spruce. That is, if you watch to see if it stays the same height even then, or if it takes off and aggressively grows much faster next year.

The Fall photo reveals this, and that factor suggests that the tight crotch angles will be less of a problem than compared to lots of other trees.

I agree that your added photos appear to show more definately that it is a JM

Lots of JMs grow slowly, and that also makes them less susceptable to branch failures. Not certian if your JM cultivar is one of those slow growers or not, but if it is that will be even more of an encouragement to keep the tree; even if it has not reached its max height potential.

That is good and indicates they will not be so likely to stress the tight crotch pattern.

Keep Japanese maple. It's a rare gem and most of us will never live long enough to see that kind of size or at least stay in one place long enough to see that size.

After looking at the pics, I'm more convinced than before that you should keep both threes standing. The Jap. maple has infringed on the spruces growing space about as much as it's going to. The spruce is definitely not badly deformed. If it is, then I'm afraid most trees in forests need to come down because they're "too close" to each other. I'm not saying I would purposely plant these two that near each other, but it's a situation you've inherited, and not a problem really. Also, you can't beat the foil offered by a conifer when the deciduous trees go into their Fall coloration.

I'd definitely recommend leaving them both stand, doing minor pruning work on the maple from time to time. BTW, not sure if you know this, so I'll add: Always prune a branch back to a crotch, where branchlets emerge. Leave no stubs

+oM

The Blue Spruce will only get worse looking as it gets wider and will need to be mutilated when it gets too close to the road/drive. The Maple should be fine for years, it took years to get that big. The choice is easy I think.

You should lose the Spruce in the next few years. Spruce need room to grow to stay good looking as they get large, and that is too close to the road out in front I assume.

The Spruce is 20+ feet wide now. How much wider could it get?

If I did take it down, any suggestions for what I could plant there for privacy? I would need something at least 8' tall for privacy from the house across the street.

Here is a view from our front door:
{{gwi:403938}}

Both trees will grow fine that close to each other for a long time. The worst that will happen is their forms will become distorted and may become aesthetically unappealing.

I am not that familiar with Japanese maple since I don't specialize (I dabble) in horticulture, but I did not think they got that big (25 feet max height, some I guess can go to 50 feet). It is a nice specimen and I would favour keepig it over the spruce if it came to a decision. It is also farther from the drvieway making for a nicer, more balanced landscape. J. maples are usually kind of small "shrubby" trees, hence the multi-stemmed crown in yours. However, it won't get to the size of a sugar, etc. maple so I don't think the stemmy crown is a big concern - but a huge wet snow dump or ice storm could damage it more than less a stemmy crown. Having the whole crown pruned lightly for stucture will benefit the tree.

You have a blue spruce, and it has the potential to get HUGE, both wide and very tall (30 ft wide, 100+ ft tall). It will eventually get taller than the J. maple, and will encroach on the driveway. Given how close it is to the drive, walkway and maple, transplanting it may not be a good idea.

However, as Christmas tree growers know, you can clip it to keep it compact and in a pyramidal form. It is almost getting too late to do that, but if you want to retain it, you can start on a regular pruning regime. It will take a few years of light and careful pruning of the existing growth to get it back to a more balanced shape. Explain to the arborist that you want to recover a symmetrical shape After that you clip all the new growth in half (including the leader) and that will keep it small and dense.

If having the thick screen is more important, then the Spruce will do the job very well for years to come. The Spruce will not look that great thou as time goes by because of shade from the Maple. You can't really trim the lower branches much on a Spruce, you just have to remove them entirely, because they will look half dead. You are not going to get another tree to fill that space quickly in half shade. Maybe Miscanthus grass could be a fast screen to 5-6 feet.

If you wanted a more formal/clean look to your frontyard, then getting rid of the Spruce would prolly be best.

The lower spruce branches can be trimmed, but someone who knows what they are doing has to do it. The spruce should NOT be pruned like a hedge i.e. branches all sheared off at the same location mid-branch.

The thing about these two trees is that the maple is (in my opinion!) beautiful, and the spruce interferes with a person's ability to appreciate its lovely shape and symmetry. If it were my garden, I would not replace the spruce with anything, but would compromise on the goal of "view blockage" which (also in my opinion!) is overrated.

Even if view blockage is a must, think about accepting "partial view blockage" in winter so that deciduous shrubs can be candidates. You might also want to plant two or three, including short ones, to make a pleasing arrangement with the tree.

If deciduous shrubs are a possibility, there are many that would reach the right size and be enjoyable to look at.