The picturesque, peeling, red-brown bark makes the cinnamon maple an exceptional phenomenon and probably the most valuable maple species worldwide. The visual icing on the cake is the yellow to red-orange color explosion of the leaves in autumn. These instructions for home gardeners will explain whether there is so much exclusive beauty behind so much exclusive beauty.
It is better not to cut the cinnamon maple
Pruning is superfluous and counterproductive
A look at its habit reveals that the cinnamon maple does not need regular contact with the pruning shears. On the contrary, thoughtless cuts can significantly impair the charismatic radiance. In the Central European climate, the Chinese maple species mostly thrives multi-stemmed, slowly and with an expansive funnel crown.
An Acer griseum always thrives when it is not bothered by pruning. Mother Nature endowed the Asian splendor with an exotic, bizarre appearance that cannot be optimized by horticultural interventions.
Cut compatibility allows pruning if necessary
If a cut on the cinnamon maple turns out to be unavoidable, you will benefit from the robust cut tolerance. How to properly trim an Acer griseum:
- The best time is after the leaves have fallen between November and January
- Do not cut cinnamon maple in temperatures below freezing
- Thin out dead branches
- Cut back branches that are too long and bothering you in one- to two-year-old wood
Maple trees usually find it difficult to sprout again from old wood. Therefore, limit the pruning to the growth of the past two years. It is advantageous for further growth if you start the scissors a few millimeters above an eye or leaf node. Longer stubs bring diseases and pests onto the scene, from which a cinnamon maple is spared under normal conditions.
Upbringing to a standard is tedious
A cinnamon maple cannot be purchased as a finished standard in a tree nursery. The leisurely growth makes pruning a lengthy and correspondingly expensive undertaking. Thanks to the good-natured pruning tolerance, home gardeners can raise a young plant to an elegant standard by continuously pruning it up.
tips
Cinnamon maple is the only maple species that doesn't scare a gardener when the bark peels off. In other maple trees, this process is considered a symptom of the dreaded sooty bark disease. On the cinnamon maple, the wafer-thin peeling, cinnamon-colored bark gives the tree an exclusive and unique appearance.