Hi. I have planted an acer saccharum 'Brocade' a couple of years ago, and it's about 10 feet now. The wind bends the new branches pretty heavily - possibly because of the nice big leaves - making it pretty impossible to maintain a straight leader. Can anyone tell me what an older saccharum 'Brocade' looks like - how tall, how wide, etc, so that I can think about how to prune, if necessary. I read something about 20 feet. It's difficult to find out details about that tree - as far as I understand it was found in the wild? Anyone know more? Thanks.
Yes, it was found in the wild near Croton Falls, NY in 1974. Van Gelderen (1999) describes it as a medium-sized tree with more or less erect branching. Barrett, in Maples (Firefly 2004), writes that Brocade makes a striking contrast [to the species]. It is a smaller grower, sporting golden-yellow fall leaves. 30 ft. by 15 ft. (10 m by 5 m) Zones 4-8. Frankly, it seems to have an oval shape in some of the online photographs; it looks like a beautiful tree.
Main feature would be cut leaves. Looks like 'Sweet Shadow'. http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=saccharum+brocade&sa=N&tab=wi Two local records for 'Sweet Shadow' are 44' x 5'0" (1995), Renton, WA 48' x 2'9" (1993), Bothell, WA Ref: Van Pelt, CHAMPION TREES OF WASHINGTON STATE If 'Brocade' is as vigorous as 'Sweet Shadow' it should be expected to also grow well above 20', which is a quite short for a sugar maple.
Thanks, Laurie and Ron B - the size info is precious. I can better understand what the branches are doing. The tree is pretty striking because of its leaves that are so deeply cut. Worth a try for anyone who likes sugar maples. For some reason it's difficult to maintain a leader on this tree - not that I need an absolutely straight tree. Everything is fine up to 6 feet, then the stem/branch was cut twice (already before I got it). Now I am dealing with the wind bouncing off the house and pushing the branches forward on top. I have another sugar maple (saccharum sacharum) that doesn't have this propensity to excessively bend - may it's the heavy leaves? Anyway, thanks. Fascinating that this tree was found in the wild.