Hedge Maple

Hedge Maple (Acer campestre)

Full to part sun, medium to moderately dry moisture, tolerates clay, loam, and alkaline soils, pH 4.5–8.5.

25–35 feet tall by 25–35 feet wide; inconspicuous yellow-green flowers in spring; fruit is a broadly winged paired samara with wings spreading nearly horizontally, ripening in fall. Growth rate slow to medium.

Native region: Not native to Tennessee; ornamental introduction from Europe, western Asia, and North Africa.

Hedge Maple earns its name from its long use as a clipped hedge plant in European gardens, where it tolerates repeated shearing. As a landscape tree in Middle Tennessee, it is valued mainly for dense, rounded form, tolerance of alkaline soils rare among maples, and resistance to air pollution — attributes that favor it in parking lots and urban streetscapes along the I-65 corridor. The five-lobed leaves are smaller and slower-growing than most other landscape maples, producing a tidy canopy. Verticillium wilt (Verticillium dahliae) is the primary disease risk in Tennessee; affected trees show sudden branch wilting and should have infected limbs removed promptly. Not significantly invasive in Tennessee but self-seeds freely in moist sites; monitor for seedling escape near woodland edges. Scale and aphids can cause leaf distortion on young trees.