Type

Tree · Perennial

Botanical family

Mixed / other

Foliage color

Green

Sunlight

Full sun to part shade

Watering

Moderate; it resents drought and baked roots

Soil

Deep, fertile, well-drained; no compaction, no road salt

Feeding

All-purpose balanced

USDA zones

3a–8a

Frost tolerant

Yes

Plant out

14 days before the last spring frost

Plant spacing

36 ft 1 in

In-row spacing

29 ft 6 in

Between rows

45 ft 11 in

Square-foot density

Not suited to SFG

Root system

Woody, shallow and far-reaching

Working depth

12–24 in

Can reach

4 ft down where the soil allows

Spread

98–148 ft across, about 2–3× the width of the plant

Almost all of a tree’s roots are in the top two feet of soil, where the air is, and they run out well past the branch tips. The deep taproot most people picture belongs to the seedling; the tree grows out of it and spends the rest of its life spreading sideways instead.

The habit is Sugar maple’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.

When

Sap in late winter, on days that thaw after nights that freeze; typically four to six weeks somewhere in February and March.

What to look for

Daytime above freezing, nighttime below: the freeze-thaw swing is the pump, and the run stops the day the buds swell (bud-swell sap tastes off).

How to harvest

Drill one tap 5 cm into a trunk at least 25 cm across (two taps over 45 cm), set a spile and a covered bucket, and collect daily. Boil outdoors: forty gallons of sap steam down to one of syrup, and the kitchen wallpaper will not forgive the difference.

How often

Daily collection through the run, then pull the spiles and let the holes heal; a healthy tree gives a gallon of syrup's worth every year of its life.

Storing the crop

Raw sap sours in days even cold, so boil within 48 hours. Finished syrup, hot-packed in jars, keeps a year in the pantry and longer in the freezer.

• Asian longhorned beetle Asian longhorned beetle is the quarantine pest to know; maples are its favorite host
• Tar spot Tar spot dotting the leaves black by August, ugly and harmless
• Verticillium & fusarium wilt Verticillium wilt killing branches one at a time; no cure, and the reason not to replant a maple where a maple died
• Sun scald Sun scald and leaf scorch on hot pavement sites it should not be planted in