It's beautiful!

Mike, will try for some closeup of the leaves. Sun out right now and will shoot the leaves. I am not very familiar with these trees and worry that in one of the storms branches will come down. It won't take much encouragement to leave it be! lol

Acer palmatum at any rate. Maybe one raised from seed, or even a spontaneous seedling - lots of these often come up in local gardens.

Here is a closeup of the leaves on the maple above.

Here is a shot of the maple just to the right of the one above.

And a close up of the leaves. The trunk is bright green and I think it is a vine maple.

Most of the leaves are down, and these were on the ground.

Some seedlings in the front garden. Are they worth potting up?

Everything has to duke it out with the hydrangeas! Look what I found on the side of the hill.

First picture is an Acer palmatum. The tree growing next to it is a Vine Maple, Acer circinatum. The seedlings are Acer palmatums. They may have more Fall color if planted in a sunnier location.

Thanks Mike, I will pot them up and move out of the hydrangea border into sunnier spots. Will have to tag them so I can find them when they go dormant! lol

Who says you have to remove the trimmings?

Clip them into smaller pieces with pruners and leave them on the forest floor to decompose and return their nutrients to the earth and nourish the tree and surrounding soil and plants.

nblan, I usually agree with the idea of leaving some cuttings, but I will have very large (huuuge) piles of branches. With my arthritic hands it is an impossible job even with ratchet pruners and loppers. My son is a horticulturist and he can't be convinced to cut the branches into small pieces! lol The word tidy, will never be used to describe my garden and we recycle everything reasonable but some stuff just has to be hauled out and sent to the recyclers.