Should I remove or save my norway maple?
Norway Maple isn't a habitual problem species, so a sound one is usually worth an opinion before it comes out. This is the tree planted every forty feet through central Indiana neighborhoods built from the 1960s into the 1990s, and the one arborists most often find strangled by its own roots. Snap a leaf stem to settle the ID in ten seconds: Norway maple bleeds opaque milky white latex from the petiole where sugar maple runs clear and watery.
How to tell which one you've got
Norway maple decline usually has a cause you can find at ground level: a flattened, straight-sided base with no flare means girdling roots and a countdown. Above ground, rule out verticillium wilt — sudden one-sided branch wilt with olive-green streaking in the sapwood is often terminal, whereas the black tar-spot blotches that alarm every homeowner in August are purely cosmetic and change nothing about the tree's health.
The structural question
Better than homeowners expect: it resisted ice damage well in the ISA ice-storm survey, and its dense canopy notwithstanding, the branches tend to hold. Failures here are usually the trunk splitting at an old frost crack or at a girdling-root-weakened base rather than limbs snapping out of the crown, which flips the whole risk assessment — on Norway maple you inspect the bottom three feet, not the canopy.
Related
- How much does it cost to remove a norway maple?→
- When should a norway maple be pruned?→
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- Is my norway maple dying or just stressed?→
- How does a norway maple hold up in a storm?→
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