Prairie Fire is cool for 2 weeks and then is an ugly tree in my opinon. Little refinement and the leaves are more brown then purple. In addtion this cultivar still struggles with our humid climate.

Your front yard speciman shoudl be a statement piece.

Go to Broken Arrow Nursery and have a Acer triflorum shipped to you.

Sorry for the double post. This original post had disappeared into a black hole for a while so I posted again.

Embothrium asked:

A crab is going to need a wider space than that. Also: what is ailing the lilac? If it might be something like honey fungus that could get on the crab at some point also.

I'm not sure what the problem is with the lilac standard. Perhaps an issue with the graft? Each year it has more and more dead branches after the winter. It's been there since fall 2012. Been having this issue for several years now. Could try to post pictures of it tomorrow.