Sorry, okay, I don't know what all the Maple weeds are, no wonder those have grown so fast! Those are the biggest by far. I'll pull them. I have many smaller ones, they don't have the 3-5 leaflets, maybe because they are small. Last autumn a number of the Maple seedling weeds around my vegetable garden had real nice red/pink fall color, thought most were Amur.

Well in 5-10 years you'll REALLY love our place then, because I've planted nearly 300 lilacs in the past 2 years! 2/3 of them are just the less-nice villosa lilac we can get for free from the pfra, but the other 1/3 are the "old fashioned" lilac that are very, very fragrant. We do have 2 horses. They do like to flick their tails and bob their heads to keep the bugs off. ;) But you forgot a couple things: first, their is the always slightly overgrown lawn because it is all brome grass that grows approx. 1 inch/hour, secondly that we grow dandelions professionally, and third, that I'm much more talented at growing weeds than perennials and roses. But other than that, you've got a good picture of our place.:) Actually, the one thing I really don't like about our trees is that we have a row of green ash in the shelterbelt and they always seem to have some sort of leaf spot that defoliates them to some degree, they are last to leaf out in spring and first to lose their leaves in fall..I don't like green ash! Did you grow up a farm girl? Sounds like you have fond memories of the typical farm yard.

The reddish colour of new growth is typical......no need to worry....as the leaves mature, they will turn green....

o.k., so i guess you haven't heard of this amur maple??? i was really excited to find a midwest forum...but i guess it isn't exactly a populated forum....how come??? the midwest is huge....i did post on the great lakes forum, but it doesn't have much traffic either!!!