We had lovely canopied Tulip Trees as sidewalk trees in our San Jose, CA. area neighborhood but they have been removed due scale infestation. The town allowed our street to vote on what replacement trees we wanted the town to buy ( from an approved list). It came down to a choice between the London Plane or the Red Sunset maple and the majority voted for the Red Sunset maple. Hopefully, it's a good choice over the London Plane which evidently can get mangy looking with anthracnose or mildew. What suggestions do you have for us tree-naive homeowners to get the Red Sunset maples off to a good start and have them thrive long term?

The town expects us to plant and care for the maples - the town will purchase 15 gallon saplings for us and will provide stakes. Our soil is generally clay-like, our street gets full sun, our temps are pretty mild year round though it gets pretty warm for approx a month ( July) hitting high 80's/low 90's; no rain at all May-October either. Otherwise pretty balmy 70's-80's May through the end of October. We get approx. 20 inches of rain total January-April.

I've read that the Red Sunset maple is fairly adaptable, but is it this way from the start as a sapling or does it get adaptable and low maintenance after it has established itself? What about the Tulip tree roots - do we need to remove every last root tip before we plant the Red Maple in the old hole? Sorry for all these questions, but any suggestions would be very welcome.

( P.S. Moderator - please remove a duplicate message I had wrongly posted as a follow-up. I wanted it to be a new post)