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Pictures of shantung maple...

lou_spicewood_tx

16 years ago

Here is the 'Skinny Dragon' acer truncatum (Shantung Maple) by Metro Maples in Ft Worth, Texas that I was privileged to get. It is pretty new as it was discovered a couple years ago. Almost Japanese maple like tree for full and hot sun. Metro Maples also has 'Fire Dragon' which produce red color (any shade depending on weather, etc) every year here which is rare for a tree in full sun. I had mine growing straight into caliche soil and it had dark red with yellow margin. it was pretty cool to see that. It grows fast as well which was nice too knowing that I'd get some shade soon.

This is interesting leaf shape off acer truncatum rootstock. At a glance, it looked same as Skinny Dragon but I guess when you have thousands of shantung maples to maintain, you'd bound to miss something unique. For some reason, Devil's Dragon keeps showing up in my mind... you should be able to see why...

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Comments (6)

flowerfan2
16 years ago
Wow, what a beautiful maple. How large does it get? I love the glossy leaves and the unusual shape.
lou_spicewood_tx
Original Author
16 years ago
Hi Flowerfan,

They are expected to reach 25-35 feet depending on who you ask. It may vary from seedling to seedling. There is one called Baby Dragon at Metro Maples tree farm which is only 4 feet by 4 feet after 14 years and they have tiny leaves. Basically a bush rather than a tree but nice though. You can check them out Metro Maples website.

Here is a link that might be useful: Shantung maples at Metro Maples
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Well, noone else is seriously doing work on shantung maple so I like to try and steer people away from junk trees like silver maple and bradford pear and grow shantung maples instead. Despite the fact shantung maple is on Texas Superstar plant, it's not widely sold everywhere unfortunately. It's really that much easier to grow in alkaline soil compared to Japanese maple or Red Maple in full sun and that's 3/4th of Texas. In east Texas, you can grow all kinds of maples there because of sandy acidic soil with more rainfall. I sure would like to live there one day. My college Stephen F Austin State University in east Texas has very nice arboretum with all kinds of maple and it was pretty nice during early December. It's nice what Metro Maples is doing to come up with nice cultivars for shantung maple that every body can enjoy growing with ease in Texas when noone else is doing that.
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PJ - My bigtooth maple is still TINY but i expect it to grow several feet in its 2nd year hopefully. I didn't get much of fall color out of it last fall but the new summer growth was very nice. I'd imagine that in several years, I'd get a lot of red new growth during the summer that would be very noticeable. Graceunderpressure - it doesn't appear that shantung maples are that weedy if at all. I googled for every single info on the internet and nothing came up about it being weedy like red maples (or esp silver maple which is BAD). I understand about a lot of seedlings popping up everywhere but that's oak. Gotta live with them, I guess but it doesn't appear that shantung maple is that bad like others. There's nothing wrong with Fire Dragon. Go for it!
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it was spectacular this year. but last year wasn't much. & most trees had good color here in mckinney this year, but not last. i think the rainy spring/summer ruined last year this firedragon is planted in about 2-3 feet of "builders dirt" with a lot of reddish sand in it, on top of soil loaded with limestone & caliche. so its color is probably due to the builders dirt
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Sounds like you're having better luck with your Shantungs than I am. I've had tons of problems. I bought 2 Fire Dragons and 1 regular from Metro Maples in 2016 and they've grown about 6-8 inches per year, with one of them randomly croaking two years ago. After I started supplementing with chelated iron last summer they perked up in terms of leaf health, growth rate, and fall color so I will see how they do. The day after I originally replied I noticed that a Bigtooth seed I bought in a pack from PlantsOfTheSouthwest germinated in the fridge. Fingers crossed!
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arktrees
16 years ago
On Metro Maples website, under "Maple News", he has posted that Fire Dragon withstood the low 20's without damage.

I can confirm from personal experience, that this is in fact TRUE!

We have one of these trees, and this morning 4-14-08 dipped to a temperature of slightly below 21F WITH Ice Fog. Sub-freezing temperatures lasted 12+ hours. The "tender" were completely encrusted with ice crystals this morning..... yet this afternoon there is no apparent damage. The succulent leaves and stems you would expect to be blasted, are standing and stiff just as though nothing special had happened. Our Japanese Maple Emperor I is a different story, as are others trees/plants.

FireDragon seems to be one tough tree.
lou_spicewood_tx
Original Author
16 years ago
I agree. Shantung maple seems to be very tough tree. Hopefully, Keith at Metro Maples and everybody else will come out with all kinds of leaf shape, color, etc much like Japanese maples that can be grown in tough conditions like windy, full sun, not so desirable soil, etc.
arktrees
16 years ago
Here are couple of pictures of our Shantung Maple "Fire Dragon". These are pictures showing the shoots of new growth AFTER the hard freezes of 21F and 26F accompanied by Ice Fog that resulted in NO apparent damage. These pictures were taken this evening 2-3 days after these hard freezes.

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Shoots are 2-5 inches.

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Close up of some of the largest shoots.

I am completely impressed by the toughness of this tree so far. I highly recommend.

Arktrees
lou_spicewood_tx
Original Author
16 years ago
Arktrees,

That looks pretty good. Back in December 2005 when the temperature was pushing 90*F and in a few days, it dropped to 14*F causing a lot of damage to trees and plants except for shantung maples. My brother in Wisconsin got Fire Dragon and it hasn't been planted due to the weather yet but it seemed to have grown a lot. He has been bringing it outside and inside for the past month and he may have as long as a month before he could finally plant it.

You will find it impossible to break 2-3 years old branch. It isn't even an inch thick. Seems like you could build a baseball bat out of Shantung maple wood!

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