Maple trees
Maples, also known as Acers, are deciduous upright trees best renowned for their autumn colours in shades of oranges, browns, yellows and reds. They’re useful as shade, specimen or accent trees with their distinctive five-point leaves making them instantly recognisable. The ordinary Sycamore is an acer, but so are many excellent medium-sized garden trees with beautifully coloured foliage. Maples are perfect for adding height and movement to the garden as their leaves sway in the wind. They also produce fruits (or “keys”), which look like twizzling helicopters as they fall to the ground in the spring, often to the delight of little children. Maple trees are adaptable, unfussy about soil type and situation and drought tolerant once established. Acer Brilliantissimum is a fine small deciduous tree for year-round colour with marvellous shrimp-pink foliage in spring, changing to lime green then dark green before falling in the autumn. Alternatively, the paper bark maple Acer Griseum is another small garden tree with stunning, smooth cinnamon-coloured bark which emerges as the old, dark red bark peels and flakes away. Our wide range of Japanese Maple trees are under a separate section.