Autumn Blaze is a hybrid of silver and red maple and loses its color late due to its silver maple heritage. Definitely not the best choice for your area. A red maple called Red Sunset is very easy to find in most nurseries and is a better choice. If you can find it, there is a cultivar called Autumn Flame that is one of the earliest red maples to turn. I've actually seen this cultivar at Home Depot and it's not that hard to find at nurseries although its not as common as Red Sunset.

Tree Oracle..

Thanks so much....that really helped...will likely move the AB's across the field once I find the right replacements

Thanks for the info here - I have been trying to figure out which red maple cultivar we had growing here on our farm and I think it's Red Sunset. Unfortunately we lost this tree in the Halloween noreaster but it had such gorgeous fall foliage as well as spring flower bud color that it will be sorely missed...

Question for Tree Oracle: I had a red maple clump with about six trunks til the hurricane this year. I had four trunks removed as a precaution. This red maple was not planted--it was part of the forest our house was built in, with lots of wetlands.

This red maple turned the brightest imaginable shade of red for many years. It almost hurt your eyes to look at. Then it stopped. The last ten years or so it had turned gold and then dropped its leaves.

The arborist recommended removing the whole tree. It's not such a pretty sight with all those stumps. I see your recommendations above. What about a sugar maple? What maple species and cultivar is best guaranteed to produce bright red fall foliage? Full sun, plenty of water.

Hi Ginny,

I'm sorry I didn't answer your question sooner. I haven't been paying attention to the forum for a while.

It's not clear to me if you are asking about maples in general that turn bright red in the fall or the sugar maple with the reddest fall foliage. The latter is easy to answer. The sugar maple cultivar, "Green Mountain", has by far the most amount of red in it. The other popular cultivars are more orange than red. As far as red maples, I would say that Autumn Flame and October Glory have the best red foliage. Most references show Autumn Blaze as a brilliant red but the color in my opinion is quite variable.

There are other trees that can provide you with that color, too. In this part of the country, I commonly see Pin Oaks that have fluorescent scarlet fall foliage that can rival any maple. Unless you want a huge tree, many Japanese maple cultivars will provide you with scarlet fall foliage including the ubiquitous Bloodgood which can get quite large for a Japanese maple. Another great cultivar is Osakazuki which is known for its scarlet red fall color. I'm seeing it around the area more and more every year. Black Gum trees are slow-growing but some of the newer cultivars like Hayman's Red and Wildfire provide a good show of scarlet in the fall. The new growth of Wildfire is bright red, too which makes for interesting contrast.

Make sure that you choose your tree in the fall when it's turning. That will at least show you what it's capable of. The actual fall color each year will vary with the environmental conditions.

Thank you so much for your helpful suggestions, TreeOracle. I'm sorry for the delay in my reply--just getting organized after Christmas.

I did mean Acer rubrum as they grow wild here so should do well. But they are variable in color too so will ponder all your suggestions. Thanks again.