Progression of my most promising tree thus far. First picture is when I got it 6 months ago on April 24. I pulled it straight out of the rich, loamy soil of my back yard using no tools. Lots of young trees had been growing there because of the good soil so I took advantage!


Second pic: Taken August 23. I ended up picking up another trident maple from the same location and that became its roommate for a time because I didnt have another pot. I did a trunk chop on the twin because it had bad shape and a nasty case of leaf spots on most the foliage. I trunk chopped the original tree because I didnt want it to be that tall. The tree budding out is the tree from the first pic.


Third pic: Taken September 7th, though it hasn't grown since so that's how it looks now. I think it's been winding down for fall and as you can see it has prepared many buds for the spring. The twin is still kicking, just doesnt look as interesting as this one does rn.


Will keep you posted!

Very cool, thanks for including us on your venture!
-B

I would check the species. The second pic and third pics, look like a trident maple... from the pictures, it seems like the leaves in the first pic are different than those of a trident ... I'm not sure.

It's the same tree in all three pictures so it's definitely a trident. Here's another angle of the first pic I happen to have taken a few days later where the leave are more pronounced:

Intrigued_Voyager wrote:

It's the same tree in all three pictures so it's definitely a trident.

I'm fairly sure it is not. I just picked a leaf from my own trident (acer buergerianum) and it looks very different.

You can count the lobes, but it's probably easier to count the veins. I see 5, not 3.
With oer a hundred species, almost as many subspecies and then a lot of cultivars, it's not easy to identify it, but it looks more like a red maple then a trident maple. Red maples do have 3 to 5 lobes. The fall color could help identify it.

Apart from that, I would not have trunk-chopped it in such an early stage.

Auk wrote:

I'm fairly sure it is not.

Actually, I'm quite sure. Let's compare. Left is Acer Rubrum/Red maple, right is Acer Buergerianum/Trident maple. Not saying it's a red maple, but it's the closest match I could find.

Noticed your hand is visible in the first picture, so let's compare some more. This is from my Trident. This is the original leaf size, this tree is growing fatter for a future trunk chop. Over 2 meters high at the moment.

Note that trident has a VERY broad range of varieties with different leaf sizes and shapes.

leatherback wrote:

Note that trident has a VERY broad range of varieties with different leaf sizes and shapes.

Thanks, but it doesn't look like any variety I'm familiar with, but as I wrote:

"With over a hundred species (of maples), almost as many subspecies and then a lot of cultivars, it's not easy to identify it

I know. I also have the very small leaf variety you are showing. Yet I am growing one with 7cm leaves, looking like this:



In other words, it is a bit hard to tell whether it is, or is not, trident. It would hep to know where this was found and whether a trident was growing next to it..