Autumn Blaze maple

Sun

Full sun gives the strongest autumn colour; tolerates light partial shade.

Water

Keep young trees evenly moist while they establish. Established trees tolerate occasional dry spells but benefit from deep watering during prolonged drought.

Soil

Moist, well-drained, slightly acidic soil is best. Tolerates clay and brief wet periods, but alkaline soil can cause persistent yellowing.

Height

40-55 ft (12-17 m)

Spread

30-40 ft (9-12 m)

Foliage

Green, deeply lobed leaves with pale undersides turn orange-red to scarlet in autumn. Colour intensity varies with climate and growing conditions.

Growth

Fast; often 2-3 ft (0.6-0.9 m) a year while young in favourable conditions.

Care needed

Medium

• Cold hardy
• Wildlife

Northern hemisphere months. In Australia, shift them by six.

Difficulty

Moderate

Toughness

Fairly tough

Pick your zone, country, light and whether you have pets.

1. Planting day

   7 ft (2 m)

2. After 1 year

   10 ft (3 m)

3. After 2 years

   13 ft (3.9 m)

4. After 3 years

   16 ft (4.9 m)

5. After 5 years

   22 ft (6.8 m)

About 13 years to full size.

From a typical nursery size, at an average rate for this kind of plant. A rule of thumb, not a forecast.

Cats and dogs

Safe

Growth rate

Fast

• Plant with the root flare visible at soil level; correct circling roots before backfilling.
• Water deeply through the first two or three growing seasons whenever the root zone begins to dry.
• Spread 2-3 in (5-8 cm) of organic mulch over the root area, keeping it away from the trunk.
• Avoid routine feeding; use a soil test before treating poor growth or yellow leaves.
• Allow generous rooting space away from paving, drains and buildings; surface roots can lift nearby hard surfaces.
• Stake only if the root ball moves in wind, and remove supports after the first growing season.

Pruning. Prune lightly in midsummer, or arrange structural pruning with a qualified arborist while the tree is young. Retain one main leader, reduce competing upright stems and remove rubbing branches; never top the crown.

Autumn

Plant while the soil is workable, water thoroughly and mulch the root area.

Late winter

Check the bare crown for split unions, storm damage and competing leaders; arrange professional assessment of major defects.

Spring

Refresh mulch without covering the root flare, and check whether young trees still need their stakes.

Late spring

Inspect new leaves for yellowing between green veins; test soil pH before applying treatments.

Summer

Water deeply during prolonged dry weather, especially while the tree is establishing.

Midsummer

Carry out light formative pruning on young trees, keeping cuts small.

• Use as a single shade tree in a large lawn, leaving room for its mature crown and roots.
• Place where its autumn colour can be seen from the house, with evergreen planting behind it for contrast.
• Use in a spacious informal avenue, allowing each tree enough room to develop without repeated crown reduction.
• Underplant the outer canopy with spring bulbs and shade-tolerant perennials rather than relying on lawn beneath dense shade.

Garden styles it suits: Traditional, Grand estate, Woodland, Autumn colour, Family-friendly and New England.

Plant it with: Daffodils, Epimedium, Christmas fern, Hellebores and Pennsylvania sedge.

Wildlife: The crown provides shelter and nesting sites for birds, and the foliage can support leaf-feeding insects. This cultivar produces little or no seed, so it offers less seed food than many other maples.

• Weak, narrow branch unions: train a single leader while young and have an arborist reduce competing stems before they become large.
• Iron chlorosis on alkaline soil: test soil pH; avoid planting in strongly alkaline ground, where repeated iron treatments may offer only temporary improvement.
• Leaf scorch during drought or heat: water the root zone deeply and maintain mulch; avoid excess fertiliser.
• Verticillium wilt, causing branch dieback: seek a diagnosis, remove dead wood and reduce water stress. There is no reliable cure; severely affected trees may need removal.

Not known to be toxic to cats, dogs or people. Red maple leaves, especially wilted or dried leaves, can cause fatal poisoning in horses; the risk from this red-maple hybrid is not well established, so keep its leaves and prunings out of horse paddocks and feed.

• Red maple (Acer rubrum)

  Usually has shallower leaf sinuses and conspicuous red flowers before the leaves emerge; Autumn Blaze has more deeply cut leaves and little or no flowering.

• Silver maple (Acer saccharinum)

  Has very deeply cut leaves with strongly silvery undersides, often drooping branches and usually yellow autumn foliage rather than a consistently red display.

• Other Freeman maples (Acer × freemanii)

  Leaf shape and autumn colour overlap considerably among cultivars. A reliable nursery label or planting record is needed to confirm 'Jeffersred'.

Freeman maple honours hybridiser Oliver Freeman, while the trade name Autumn Blaze refers to the tree's bright autumn foliage.

Propagation. Propagated commercially by rooting cuttings or grafting. Seed, if produced, will not reliably reproduce 'Jeffersred'; buy a correctly labelled tree to obtain this cultivar.

Accepted botanical name

Acer freemanii

Sources: GBIF (CC BY 4.0). The care and design notes are LandscapeGPT's own.