Found some pictures Cindy took of the bigtooth, Wasatch, or canyon maple, Acer grandidentatum in the back yard. I bought these for $6.25 at the old Hampden West Nursery, about 1988. They get water, and so are about 20 feet tall now. They were afflicted with anthracnose last year after a relatively wet spring; I removed infected leaves and branches and everything seemed fine this summer.
Early Mormon settlers tapped these for syrup; when the sap is running I can see why. In fact, some botanists consider this to be just a shrubby western “expression” of the eastern sugar maple, Acer saccharum. Whatever. Here, they’re trees; single-trunked, with no sign of forming additional trunks. I picked up another one a while back, called ‘Manzano’, which is supposed to be more tree-like, though how much more tree-like than the ones already here, I don’t know. Maybe extra tree-like. I hope that doesn’t mean “gets huge and leaves trillions of seedlings everywhere”.
‘Manzano’ is planted to replace an Acer ginnala which has suddenly gone downhill. The spiralling gashes in the bark suggest that it was hit by lightning, which can cause anything to go downhill.
Something we don’t see here very often, leaves rimmed with ice.
the miserable gardener 