Colorado is most closely identified with the aspen tree, which is probably why it’s a favorite among developers down here on the flats. Unfortunately, aspens don’t generally grow well at lower altitudes (of which Denver’s mile high qualifies). Further, aspens are pretty much junk trees, growing where they can get moisture, sending roots out in all directions to clone, etc. And they have an individual life span of about twenty-odd years.
Which would explain why nearly all of the aspens in our front yard are dead or dying, and have been passing away steadily for the last few years.
So on Sunday I went out and bought three maple trees. Acer rubrum. Lovely red foliage in the fall, fast growers, and, if we believe Sunset rather than the little tags on the trees, a bit bigger than our old aspents, but not too big.
And sometime over the next week (some night after I return home from work? on our busy Saturday? on our also-busy Sunday?) I’ll be hard at work planting them.
Just have to figure out where …
ah, beauty. love maple trees. minor hassles with seedlings, catch ’em early and they are easy to pull..
glad you didn’t go for the norways, I hear that they are forcing out the natives in these parts (MI)
It’s taking out the poplars (Aspen) that is the hassle… So big. So ugly.
Ah yes Maple, the Liquid Amber of the Rockies.