I did not know that Unity was a sugar maple, I have a very small one in my front yard.

Does anyone know if sugar maples are grafted? I took some cuttings from my son's tree, I figure if he can grow it successfully it must be a hardy tree. The cuttings were from suckers around the trunk base and the leaves looked the same as the rest of the tree.

I took them August 26, just before it froze, wounded the base, removed all but the top 2 leaves and dipped them in #2 semi hardwood rooting hormone. I stuck them in moist coir and when I checked them today one has roots. I stopped looking after that I was afraid that I would damage the others. They were under 24 hour lighting as I read that they must not think it was fall and drop their leaves. Not sure if that info is correct but it sounded reasonable to me as I keep my citrus under periodic 24 hour lighting so they do not get set back or suffer leaf drop when I bring them in the house in the fall.

Unity will be grafted but the cuttings that you took may have been below the graft. Usually you can see the graft line. I was told that Lord Selkirk was the root stock of failed grafts, mine has nicer fall color than my Unity trees but they are in different locations and each fall seems different among all types of my trees.

The one that I took the cuttings from was not Unity. I will go and look to see if it is grafted.

ETA my Unity died to the ground and has sent up shoots. The leaves are beautiful, large and classic sugar maple. If this is the rootstock I am fine with that because the colour is stunning.

Your unity died? I've only planted one for a client and its done perfectly fine to this day over 8 years or so.....but I have heard Lord Selkirk and Inferno are a zone hardier.

Yes it did, but I chalk it up to the mower and that I had to move it when I shouldn't have.

Unfortunately the heavy snow last night broke the top off of my son's lovely sugar maple. Branches that still have leaves and wet snow do not mix well.

And the sugar maple leaves are huge. Sick of the snow yet? Somehow we dodged it but we got -4 last night which was much below the predicted and my Katsura tree leaves all burned. Once again, no fall colour. I really hope it learns to turn earlier next year. Even Manitoba maples in my yard have burned leaves. I didn’t think they were that susceptible to frosts as we are back up to +6 right now.... all my other trees are fine without burn. Odd.

I love the winter and look forward to it. But, snow in Sept. is a little early, even for me.

I just read an article talking about how the past two weeks had a ridge from Alaska that was the strongest in northern hemisphere records. It’s not just everyone thinking it’s bad. It’s easily record setting bad. They said it’s five standard deviations off of what is normal. What’s sad is that we may end up with a full four weeks in a row of it. This week looks pretty cold, ten degrees below average, bottoming out to 15 degrees below average on Sunday. With any luck, it would be nice if they were wrong about the long term forecast finally. Calgary is about to get smashed. And fort Mac is going to be way warmer than Calgary. Our weather systems are going sideways.

Yes, seems we're now so often setting record extremes. Even of recent, last December was something like the third warmest recorded, then winter itself being the coldest in 40 years with Edmonton seeing a record long streak of below freezing temps and it not being until mid April when winter was finally done with us. THEN, comes May and we have a fantastic warm month 4 C above the norm. But, yes, what's now upon us is truly something else and with even colder temps to begin this weekend. The Weather Network is still holding out for a mild Alberta winter, though other forecasts claim the opposite when factoring in the relative weakness of El Nino and other atmospheric patterns and conditions.

Weather Canada predicts warm winter as well as does accuweather. Only one I saw that predicted cold was farmers almanac which I give no credit to as they say they base their predictions on things that sound very similar to astrology and they say it’s “secret” which to me sounds like code word for bs. Maybe I’m wrong.

What’s eerie is that I watched a video from 20 years ago with a scientist who was saying that Alberta was going to end up with extreme weather due to climate change and that’s all we are getting anymore. Unbelievable warm spells in winter, way less snow and then record setting cold months and spells. Don’t forget that the average temperature has jumped a couple degrees on average as well even though spells like this don’t make it feel like it is so.

Btw, it was the second coldest average September for highs as well. I’m blown away that it wasn’t first. It’s really weird how our spring and fall months are doing flips on each other so much now. Two years ago, our November was warmer than our October. Weather network is still saying there is a possibility that our October could end up warming than September which is an extremely low probability normally.

And yes I do remember how the first three weeks of December last winter were actually warmer than these last two weeks lol.

It's going to cold as crap here next week. Will probably kill all the leaves that are still mostly green from the above avg temps we've been having this Sept. So very little fall color. I hope that no damage is done to trees from the rapid cool down that's coming :/ I'm not a big fan at all of these extremes

Might I mention, record low for Sunday this weekend is -8 and was set in 2009 and we are set to tie it. All I can say is, us plant lovers are getting a real shite end of the stick with this lack of spring and fall. Don’t forget the non existent April warmth we had too.

It's supposed to get 16F here next week. near record cold.

Plant Love, Froze Bud - So did you guys get any fall color on oak trees, specifically Q. Ruba or Q. Elipsiodalis? Or did those just get zapped by low temps? What about Autumn Blaze and Sienna Glen maples?

Here's a couple autumn blaze last week close to my place. My red oak was halfway to turning red and kinda of just turned a rusted color. I haven't been to the big city so I'm not sure how the N. Pin Oaks look.

We had what was known as the largest record setting ridge in the northern hemisphere hitting us the last two weeks and had late october weather for 2 weeks straight and its supposed to continue for another week. I'm blown away that the trees have done so well considering. My autumn blaze pear tree is still trucking with no leaf burn and it was -7 this morning which is 16f I believe. My purple leaf maples are still fully leafed....I have no clue how they can handle those lows without burning off.

Calgary just got 16 inches of snow today and might get another 8. The 100 year record for today was 2.5 inches for them. Some really nasty stuff is happening with the climate these days. We just came off our worst winter streak on record for days that don't stay above freezing for 24hrs and an atrocious start to spring. I feel like everywhere else I look in north america is breaking heat records all the time.....I'm getting pretty jealous.

I should really try to get a picture of this unity sugar maple in my neighborhood that is colored up nicely but I may be too late. It looked great about 5 days ago and this is a sugar maple forum.

Lane, I was looking at your long term forecast and it looks eerily similar to our week this week lol. Some predictions are calling for us to be back up to between 10-17c (50-65f) by next weekend which would be incredible.

Prairie splendor Maple and Mountain Ash in background
Lace Weeping Willow (Salix Babylonica)

So Prairie Splendor is different from Crimson King? I've actually never seen a purple leaf Norway. They seem to have not caught on here in WY or in the Denver area. Not that we can grow even 1/2 of what they do in Denver lol. That is very, very, nice!

Only difference is that it has hardier genes. It was a crimson king from Lethbridge, Alberta and seems to be able to handle -40 no problem but crimson king dies back all the time even when winters are zone 5. Mine is on the forth winter with no dieback.

Here is the mother tree.

https://www.shelmerdine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Prairie-splendor-norway-maple.jpg

The prairie splendors are showing up all over the place in edmonton now, especially in the suburb of Sherwood Park. Seen lots of big ones in a certain neighborhood that all do extremely well. The tree is super nice in the morning when the sun is shining through and the leaves look almost completely red.

As for crimson king, I did find a couple exceptions to the rule. Look at these huge ones I found that seem perfectly happy with our terrible weather lol. They would definitely do fine for you if they can live here although technically Edmonton is now considered zone 4 but I'm guessing the zone 4 here is nowhere near the warmth of your zone 4 and you have much nicer winters. You get major chinooks I'm assuming though? That would be brutal on trees. Calgary has much warmer winters than Edmonton but seems to have trouble growing trees because it can get so warm in winter and break dormancy in buds.

I live in Laramie and I have a brother that lived in Calgary for a few years and he said weather in general is very similar. The high temps in the dead of winter and summer may be a bit warmer here, but the low temps are pretty much the same year round. Much, much windier here though. I would love to visit Canada.

Edit: I just looked. The weather is very similar, indeed. Main difference is like I said dead of winter and dead of summer are a tad warmer here in terms of highs, and the lows are a bit colder here in the spring and fall. And Calgary has more precip by a ways. Both are challenging places to grow to say the least. I feel right at home here in the Far North forum lol

Do other Norway cultivars do well in Canada on the prairies?

Long before 'Prairie Splendor' had been introduced, I had seen a few smaller specimens of what I had believed to be 'Crimson King', one being on 124 st Edmonton and a nice specimen in of all places Jasper, Alberta. Though, these could have also been seed grown for all I know and I'm unsure if either of these remain. Also, there's a surprisingly large green leaf Norway several blocks south of Edmonton's University Hospital. I will inquire of its location and take a peek when possible.

Lane, it's great to have you and others from similarly harsh US climates state their experiences, especially so regarding newer selections.

Hey FrozeBudd

The 124 Norway is a Deborah Norway maple. Starts off purple and then transitions to green. I have some google map pictures of it.

I planted an emerald queen Norway maple for a client about 8 years ago and it looks really nice. I drove by it this year and it’s really picked up in speed after a slower start.

There are some gigantic Deborah’s in the city and I’ll post some. Some really good sugar maples too. I wonder if the one you are talking about by the university..: is it off 109st or the ones just east of the traffic circle on groat?

There is a fellow who has a row of sugar maples that are probably 30ft tall and they look incredible in fall and I had a conversation with him about them.

The one off 109st is very large. You can only really tell if it’s a sugar or Norway when you see fall colour or the bark close up.

There is a gigantic sugar maple just east of the university. That thing has to be 40ft wide. I got a great picture of that to post too.

I know I'm posting a long time from the last message, but I hope we get to see those pics of the sugar maple and norway maple!

I'm thinking of planting an Autumn Blaze in my front yard. I'm wondering if anyone has had any problems with shallow roots of the Autumn Blaze ruining concrete driveways or sidewalks? Would it be too close for me to plant it 4 or 5 feet from a concrete driveway?

I planted an Emerald Luster Norway maple this summer. We’ll see how it does!

There’s better pictures out there but here’s the sugar maple. Someone uploaded a fall color picture one time and it was incredible.

I’ve got some Norway maple pics saved that are massive. I’ll upload when I get to my laptop. One has got to be 50ft wide. It’s green though. Prairie splendour is showing up all over Edmonton. They are fully hardy when they get established. I have one in my yard that has survived 5 winters and we get even colder but it’s starting to frost crack. They need bark protection when young. My bad. It withstood the first four winters and last, the sun started getting it bad. I will protect this winter. Even a cedar planted in front to block the sun will work.

Another sugar.

Norway

Sugar

2 more sugar. They color amazingly.

Wow, beautiful. They have such great round and large canopies. Some of those sugar maples are quite close to sidewalks and the sidewalk looks fine, so that is encouraging.

I didn't think sugar maples did very well in the prairies, but those are great.

This may be of some interest: http://www.prairietrees.ca/prairie-tested-trees/

The results of the Western Nursery Growers Group 8 yr tree trial (trees trialed in different Western Canada locations for 8 years). Of course I think this kind of thing needs to be taken with a grain of salt; it definitely has some good info but I'm sure there are exceptions. For instance, after having two 'Hot Wings' tatarian maples for years, I'm not sure I would recommend them. I think they are nice looking trees, but one of them was totally destroyed after one early snowfall, and after further research, that is not an isolated incident.

But, it still provides some good hardiness info.

I live on a farm and what thrives for me is sometimes quite different from what looks nice in Saskatoon, one hour away. Just so much more exposure. That's why I chose Inferno as the sugar maple I want to plant; of the ones they trialed it has the most recommendations. I'm the OP, but I still haven't gotten around to planting it, ha ha. Soon!

Yes, I've seen that prairie trees site before. I had also considered planting an inferno sugar because they recommended it, but I live in the city and have a more sheltered location, and I know other people in the city have successfully grown autumn blazes. I want to plant the autumn blaze because it has a fast growth rate so I hopefully won't have to wait as long to have a big tree.

Yes, I think you might have better luck than they did at some of their trial sites! I think a lot of trees are worth trying, anyway. Yes, they might not be a success...but they might be amazing!

What city are you in? There are lots of successful large autumn blaze in Edmonton but some have tip dieback but then they just grow back hard the next year. Normally it’s just the newest growth. Doesn’t harden off in time for cold in fall.

I am in Edmonton.

Here’s my inferno. Your autumn blaze will be fine if you give it lots of water and make sure to not encourage it to grow late into the season. It has a tendency to grow too late and burn if it does. Cut off the watering early August and don’t fertilize past May. The only ones I see that seem to bite it or dieback are ones that are in dry neglected areas of the city. People that take care of them seem to do fine with them.

There is a 20ft autumn blaze and a couple smaller ones in my town and we are a zone colder. It’s beautiful in fall. I can’t wait for the show in a couple weeks.

There are some beautiful ones at nait souch campus in parking lot that are ironically probably neglected and Robertson way SW about 15 of them getting huge on town boulevard.

This one is getting beautiful.

One downtown.

Don’t ask me why some don’t survive and others do. It makes no sense and it has nothing to do with temperature or the ones in my town would have been dead a long time ago as they have seen zone 2b winters.

Thanks for all the advice and pictures.

In terms of watering the Autumn Blaze, do you think I need to water it for it's entire life, or just when it's young to help it establish?

Do a good job in the first year and then make sure to water whenever there is longer periods without much rain. Just don't be that person that waters for one year and ignores it. Deep water a couple times a year or whenever its dry.