This is really getting to be a problem. Too many feral plants that we find at work get canned as if they will eventually be installed back into a landscape somewhere. The small nursery where they recover until their relocation is getting crowded. Although many are practical and appropriate for such recycling within the landscapes here, some are not, so may be with us for a while.
Five feral Norway maple saplings were found in one of the landscapes where mature trees were pruned for clearance from a roof. We could not just leave them there. They eventually would have been overwhelmed by the rest of the forest, or grown too close to the same roof that we pruned other trees away from. They were very easily dug, so came back to the nursery with us.
It was too late to prune them as necessary. They are tall and lanky trunks, with too many comparably lanky branches. As much as I am instinctively compelled to prune them while they are bare and dormant, I will refrain until later in spring or summer, when they will not bleed so much. They look ridiculous. They seem happy though. Their buds are beginning to swell already.
We have no idea where they will go from here. After pruning, they should develop into exemplary specimens. As goofy as they are now, their trunks are remarkably straight. I happen to be fond of Norway maple, and would be pleased to find an application for them here. The problems is that there are too many trees here, and the forests and landscapes continue to make more!
Horticulture in a forest can be like that. It seems like there is plenty of space out there, but so much of the space is too shaded or too crowded.
Tony Tomeo 
I once had some trees —
Or, should I say, they once had me.
They took so much room —
These perfectly good Norwegian woods!
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I should have expected something on that order.
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I couldn’t help myself….
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We are finding lots of newly sunny places to plant trees in this forest thanks to the Emerald ash borer!
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Oh, that is just sad. MANY coast live oaks and tanoaks were killed by the sudden oak death syndrome, but the forest was quick to fill in the vacated space.
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What’s growing in place of the oaks?
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More of what is already here. In our region, the forest is already very crowded by the regeneration of redwoods that were clear cut harvested a century ago, and vegetation that has not burned in a very long time. Redwoods are happy to fill in space vacated by dead oaks.
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Yes, my nephew in Wisconsin lives near a forest that has had the ash borer. So many ways for trees to be attacked, it’s good you’re saving the Norways, which are nice, for another place.
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I sort of suspect that they my go to live in the front gardens of homes in town, where the forest is not so dense.
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Yea, it was a good song. Had to say it.
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It makes no sense. It sounds pretty, but is . . . weird.
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Ugh! I hate Norway Maple! Kill them while no one’s watching!
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There is no need to hide it. It seems that most who are acquainted with them dislike them. They just do not happen to be invasive here like they are in most other regions where winters are cooler.
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Reblogged this on Tony Tomeo and commented:
Well, I tried to use them as understock for Schwedler maple, but they did not take. They regenerated with better than original form, but still need a home where they will not naturalize.
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