do you have a cultivar you recommend?
we have tons of male paper mulberries on the border of our property that are a sea of yellow in the fall.
Everyone is usually very helpful and I’ve never been trolled on this forum before so this is kind of new for me.
I have a condition called eosinophilic esophagitis. essentially I don’t have an immediate reaction to allergens, it just slowly builds up in my system and my esophagus swells up to the point where food begins to get stuck when I swallow. its is very difficult to deal with and there is no cure. I’m already on PPIs for reflux (one of the treatments) and the only other treatment is swallowing Flonase which is expensive in the USA. Most exposure to airborne allergens are out of my control but when choosing a tree to plant that is within my control.
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Thank you for the information on the OPAL scoring system. Food allergens are within my wheelhouse, but not so much anything else. I have a severe intolerance of a food that I deal with, so I’m very sympathetic to someone wanting to avoid something that triggers physical symptoms. My red maples right now are past peak but still very lovely and I think you’ll be happy with their growth habit, too.
Found this one growing near my house. Southern Sugar Maple, usually has yellow or orange, sometimes pink, and very rarely deep red leaves like this.
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Do you want a big tree, or will a small one suffice?
I like Japanese maples, especially the weeping ones with dissected leaves, but the dissectums are smaller (dwarf) and slow-growing.
One of the best cultivars is Acer palmatum var. dissectum ‘Tamukeyama’. It is one of the hardiest cultivars and has dark crimson foliage in the spring, purple-green foliage in summer, and bright red foliage in the fall. Here is one of mine that is a few years old (picture from spring):
The weeping Japanese maples will take a sort of bush habit if they are not trained when young to grow more tall, but they are attractive either way and have a naturally aesthetic branch structure. They are very long-lived, and mature specimens can look quite spectacular. Random picture from the Internet:
Most Japanese maples prefer partial or filtered sun, but Tamukeyama can tolerate full sun as well. More sun will cause the leaf color to be more brilliant.
If you want a larger tree that grows more like a proper tree (without training), but will still not become as dominating as a native maple, a regular upright Japanese maple might be a good option. There are hundreds of cultivars and I am no expert on them, but one of the most popular is Acer palmatum ‘Bloodgood’. It has burgundy leaves in the growing season that turn bright crimson in the fall.
Japanese maples can be a little finicky to establish, but I’ve not had any problems with mine after the first season.
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Gotta be a maple?
Any consideration for blackgum, Nyssa sylvatica?
Most here have the most dependable red-orange fall color of any natives, though I do see some that only do yellow.
I have no clue as to their allergenic potential.
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I’ll certainly look into Black gum. according to my allergen reference book, most cultivars are male but the ‘Miss Scarlet’ Cultivar is female with red fall foliage and ornamental berries.
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I don’t know how allergenic it is, but red maple seems to meet your other needs. It’s a medium-sized tree that’s green during the year and turns brilliant red in the fall. I have one in my yard in Massachusetts, and last week i saw some just beginning to send out flower bugs in Florida, so I’m sure there are individuals adapted to Maryland. I’d probably look for one locally, as there is probably some genetic drift between the northern and southern populations, and a local one is likely well adapted to your local conditions.
They like water, but aren’t super fussy.
I’d recommend against a silver maple anywhere near a house, even if you weren’t worried about jugolone, because they have very brittle wood. It’s pretty common for them to drop a huge limb, or half a tree, in a windstorm. And i think they usually turn yellow, not red, in the fall. They are really pretty, though, and I like canoeing under them on the banks of a waterway.
I ordered an ‘October Glory’ Red Maple that will be delivered in the spring from a small nursery in NC called Maples N More.
The ‘October Glory’ Cultivar of red maple is female so no pollen issue. OPAL score of 1 out of 10 (10 being the worst)
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