October Glory has exceptional fall color characteristics.

Personally, Autumn Blaze. Grows faster, is half red maple, and handles wet clay soil just fine as long as it is not standing in water. It is much more drought resistant, and colors earlier and longer in the fall. There are large numbers of them in my area, and suffer very little wind/winter storm damage. They are dense trees foilage trees which can be good or bad depending upon your perspective. With that said, if you want lesser density, and more break resistance, but keeping the other properties of Autumn Blaze, then consider Autumn Fantasy instead. More of a ruby red fall color, and is purported in the patent application to be very resistant to winter damage. It is also a silver.red maple hybrid. Originates from a tree in Illinois if I remember correctly. I have both, and LOVE them. JMHO

Why the oak died could be an important point.

Here is a recent picture of my Autumn Blaze, it was on of the first trees to turn colors and the picture was taken on 10/04/2008. The tree was planted about two years ago come late fall, and I think it is just beautiful. -Ivy

http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t59/appalotranch/AutumnBlaze10053012.jpg

Here is a link that might be useful: App-A-Lot Ranch

Both my sister and I had planted Autumn Blaze ... they had colored up nicely, though had lost nearly all the foliage even before any frost had touched them, we are disappointed the color had not lingered ... the trees are otherwise healthy.

Terry

I cannot decide between the October Glory or Autumn Blaze maple trees.
We will plant 2 trees in our large front yard. We are in zone 7 and are new to Chapel Hill, NC so your recommendations are welcome. I want a tree that is going to be a brighter red or orange vs. a burgundy. I prefer brighter reds than a dark burgundy. One of the maples will be planted about 12' from driveway and would that be a problem?
Also, which tree will flower sooner and stay on for a longer period of time. Thanks for your advice.

I am in the same situation only the huge tree we lost was in the front yard and it was a maple. And we live in Pennsylvania. I have looked at both of these trees and have been researching for 2 months now. Both are red maples ( the silver maple hybrid actually makes it even weaker) which means they grow faster but have soft wood so they are more susceptible to loss of limbs ect. as they get older. Sugar maples don't grow quite as fast but they are hard wood so they are more durable and live twice as long. IF the tree I was planting was in the backyard I would probably go with the Sugar maple but that's just me. It still has nice fall color. Because mine is in the front yard I am still researching for something faster growing. I've looked at Wildfire Black Gum but just not sure yet. I love the fall color of it and it's a hard wood but different sites say fast and slow growing. I didn't want to put something slower growing in that spot. I DID purchase a red oak for the other side of our house at the front of the yard. They grow up to 3' pr year and live 300 years. I just thought of this. I can't plant it here but if I was in California (What is your zone? ) I would consider the Nuttall oak. It's fast growing, strong and is supposed to have the most beautiful color of all oak trees. Comparable to the maples. Oh, I just saw that this post was 13 years ago! So cathy_c, what did you go with?

I always considered the Silver Maple a weed tree. I just took down two near my house. I put a new roof on the house and the trees were just too big and too close to the building. I now want to replace with just one tree, but farther away from my home. I live in northern Wisconsin so I want a Sugar Maple that turns a beautiful color in the fall. I am zeroing in on Red Sunset, Red Maple or Autumn Blaze. (2022) As always, it depends on weather and wind on how long the fall color will remain on the tree.

I ended up going with a sugar maple. It won't last beyond 100-150 years but oh well. The color is nice. It's pretty fast growing and supposed to be pest resistant and durable. It's been a year and it's doing well so far.

100-150 years for a sugar maple?

Extremely large specimens have reached more than 130 feet (40 m) in height and more than 5 feet (1.5 m) in d.b.h. [36]. Sugar maple is long-lived and plants can survive for 300 to 400 years [30].

SPECIES: Acer saccharum - USDA Forest Service

I saw that on one site and went with it. I just jumped on and saw what you were saying to be most common. Thanks for the correction! Seems I made a better choice than I expected!

Actually check between the types of suage maples that you mentioned. There are definitley differences. I think Autumn blaze is a hybrid with the silver maple? You might not want to go that way even if the color is nice.

Well, first let's make a clarification on the type of tree we're talking about.

I was talking about Sugar maples (Acer saccharum) because that's what you stated in your first post. They are long lived trees as stated in the USDA link.

Maybe that's not what you meant?

If you were talking about 'Autumn Blaze' maple trees, then we are taking about an entirely different species of tree, and yes this one will be lucky to go 150 years. 60 would be more like it.

'The autumn blaze maple tree is a hybrid of the red maple tree and the silver maple tree, both native to North America.'

How to Grow and Care for Autumn Blaze Maple Trees (thespruce.com)

Actually, scratch my one post. Sorry to be so confusing. I DID know that Sugar maples were long lasting. It was the Red Sunset maple that I went with because I needed something faster growing to replace a tree in the front yard. It will unfortunately only last up to 150 years. I think where I got confused was that you mentioned in your 8 day old post that you wanted to go with a Sugar Maple. But then mentioned zeroing in on the Red Sunset, Red Maple or Autumn Blaze which are all varieties of Red Maple. Maybe I misunderstood that. Then you corrected that in today's post. I would not go with Autumn Blaze maple since it is a hybrid of the silver maple and less resilient to pests, I THINK. It's been a year since I was researching all of this.

Okay thanks!

The 8-day old post wasn't mine but that's okay.

I just saw your post about a sugar maple only having a life span of 100-150 years and thought it best to clear up that misinformation as things like that have a way of traveling like wildfire on the internet. :-)

Yes, a big difference in the hard maples like Acer saccharum(sugar) and the soft maples, Acer rubrum(red) or Acer saccharinum(silver) and associated hybrids of the last two.

I just hope all will learn something when they read these types of posts. ;-)

Oh sorry! Yes, for all of us to learn and NOT forget what we've learned! Too bad we can't have it all...fast growing, very long life span, beautiful color that doesn't drop it's leaves till say... November (really pushing it), disease and pest resistant......if someone knew what to cross to get that they'd make a fortune. Is there a sugar/red maple hybrid? And throw in some red oak so the leaves don't ever drop or need cleaned up.

Oaks drop spent leaves, same as all other shrubs and trees.

I guess I should rephrase that. It isn't that "they", meaning not all, don't ever drop their leaves but they often hold them through winter. Then they gradually get blown off as the weeks go by on into spring. They never leave the mess on the ground that a full size maple does when it drops it's leaves all at once over a 2-3 week period of time. I have one in my yard that does this.