Bob, do you happen to know the pH (acidity/alkalinity) of your soil? Rubrum maples do not do well in alkaline soils conditions. Yes, soil pH can be adjusted, but it always creeps back to where it started eventually. Yes, you can then quite easily re-acidify, but by now, I'm sure you're seeing the pattern. Better, IMO, to plant something which will already like your conditions, of which there are many choices.

+oM

I dont have one of these, but i know that Lowe's sells a "Sun Valley Red Maple" that gets 20ftx10ft. That would also be a good tree for a smaller yard. You can go to thier website to find more information.

Good luck!

Not familiar with that cultivar, so please don't take this as a personal argument, but......that size must be after five years or something! Is there really a full-on dwarf red maple? In nature, a small mature red maple would be 60 ft. tall.

+oM

"Sun Valley Red Maple" gets to 50x35 at maturity. lowe's products list the size after 10 years typically.

thank you all for the feedback thus far.

i will be getting my soil tested once temperatures have risen past 50 degrees fahrenheit consistently...

i called a local nursery and they have some in stock (B&B). i will be checking out the stock before buying. they have 1.5" and 2" trees and i will likely be buying all of them as they only have a handful.

I'm sure most of the tree measurements at lowes are correct. They also had maples that were listed as being 50x30. They had a london plain tree that was listed at 100x70ft at maturity and no tree grows to 100ft in 10 years. Also they have the cleveland pear listed at 40x20.

I dont know why people think there measurements are for 10 years. Other sites also list the sunset valley at 20x15.

thank you arbordave... you mentioned a slow growth rate while everything i've been reading says this is one of the fastest growing maples... could this be due to your soil pH?

thank you.

Soil pH could be a factor in its growth rate, but our Scarlet Sentinels have been very slow compared to other freemanii cultivars like Autumn Blaze or Celebration.

Bob,

I'm in agreement with Dave. Scarlet Sentinel is one of the slower growing red (or Freeman) maple varieties (supposedly it is a Freeman Maple with a little less Silver Maple than other Freeman varieties). If you look at a lot of the pictures online they seem to confirm this- big trunks with pretty small canopies.

Here is a link from Moon Nurseries (prominent wholesaler in the southern U.S.) describing it as one of the slower growing maples: http://www.moonnurseries.com/Trees?nid=2146

And, same as Arbordave stated, fall color is also quite minimal here in Iowa (almost non-existent). Given the fact that eventually it will get out to 20' wide or so why not use something that gives you a nicer aesthetic or faster growth rate?

I wondered if you had ever considered Metasequoia 'Gold Rush' (or straight species) or Taxodium 'Shawnee Brave'. They would give you branching nearly to the ground, a fairly narrow habit, good growth rate, and the beautiful, feathery foliage all season turning coppery-bronze in the fall. Beaver Creek Wholesale has both in medium to very large sizes. They would also have many of the columnar oaks in anywhere from an 8-10' to 18' size, depending on your budget. Great people that could give you a local supplier who could get the trees in for you. I was looking at their maples earlier but it looks like they are down to Acer rubrum 'Autumn Spire' for more upright, thinner cultivars.

Let us know when you do get them in the ground and what you end up going with!

my original choice was armstrong maple. good growth rate, narrow habit, resistant.

then i thought twice about putting such TALL trees in my yard and questioned it (i don't have a large yard) and found the scarlet sentinel. it was roughly 5 feet wider with significantly less height. apparently armstrong gets to 60 feet, while scarlet gets to 40...

Bob, it's my own fault for not researching, but I was under the impression this cultivar was a red maple. Now that I've learned in this thread that 'Scarlet Sentinel' is a Freeman maple, my comments regarding soil pH carry less weight, in that Freeman maples handle higher-pH soils better than do full red maples. Still won't be good if it's 8.8 or something, but generally Freemans are more accommodating.

+oM

Even though most Freemans are more high pH tolerant, even within their group there is still quite a variation in pH adaptability. Sienna Glenn (around here, at least) will often show very chlorotic leaves in medium to slightly elevated pH levels.

As Dave stated, Autumn Blaze, Celebration, Marmo, Firefall, and others with a lot of "saccharinum blood" are quite tolerant to a wide variety of pH levels.

It seems those with more of the "rubrum blood" are more affected by high pH. Scarlet Sentinel, Armstrong, Sienna Glen, etc.... are all much less tolerant to higher pH soils here in Iowa. I would assume the same in other parts of the country.

Thus far the exception has been Acer 'Redpointe' for us. Even though in appearance much like a fast growing red maple with leaves and fall color, it has done well in both medium to moderately alkaline conditions for us here.

i'll definitely get back with a soil test as soon as i can. some snow fell yesterday after i was out working on the yard a few days before that - and the temperatures were >65 degrees :(