Worth knowing: The Red Maple really shows to advantage with its gorgeous oval-shaped crown and the magnificent colouring, when it is cultivated as a solitary plant. It is fast-growing with up to 60 cm a year and reaches a height of up to 12 meters. With its fiery red colouring during autumn, the Red Maple brings a piece of Indian Summer into your garden. Its small and initially bronze-coloured leaves are basically five-lobed and up to 10 cm big. Even young trees bloom early before the leaf formation, with red blossoms that come with thick inflorenscences on long stalks and exhale a light honey-like scent. By the way, the Red Maple leave is shown on the Canadian banner. Natural Location: The Red Maple has its natural habitat mainly in eastern North America, from the Atlantic Coast to the Appalachian Mountains until close to the Plains. Cultivation: Seed propagation indoors is possible throughout the year. To increase the germinability, you should keep the seeds initially for about three weeks in the freezer and place them afterwards for another 24 hours in warm water for priming. Press the seeds gently into moist potting compost, put just a little compost earth on top and cover the seed container with clear film to prevent the earth from drying out. Don’t forget to make some holes in the clear film and take it every second or third day completely off for about 2 hours. That way you avoid mold formation on your potting compost. Place the seed container somewhere bright and warm with a temperature about 20°Celsius and keep the earth moist, but not wet. The first seedlings will come up after four to eight weeks. By the way: the rooting of the Red Maple is rather flat - even in the seedlings the roots will spread to the side after growing not more than 5 cm deep. Place: The Red Maple prefers a bright and sunny spot. A light shaded place is also possible - however, the magnificent colouring in autumn comes out best in full sunny places. Even young plants are rather fast-growing. Care: The rooting of the Red Maple can cope easily with most soils and tolerates dry places as well as moist or even wet habitats. Even the roots of matured trees don’t reach deeper than 35 cm, but grow wide instead. During the winter: The shiny autumn leaves are being cast off rather late. The tree is completely frost-resistant even up to -30° Celsius. However, in its first years it can be sensitive to late frosts, and should therefore be protected by earthing up some foliage. Picture credits: - © © Jeff dean - Attribution - - © Frank Laue - © Saflax - http://www.saflax.de/copyright - © Frank Laue - © Saflax - http://www.saflax.de/copyright - © Willow - CC-BY-SA-3.0 - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 - © Jean-Pol GRANDMONT - CC-BY-SA-3.0 - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 - © Jean-Pol GRANDMONT - CC-BY-SA-3.0 - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 - © Syp - Public domain - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/ - © Syp - Public domain - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/ - © Jeff dean - Attribution -