Paper Bark Maple, Large Trees

Paper Bark Maple Standard Trees

The Paper Bark Maple tree, Acer griseum has beautiful peeling dark caramel-cinnamon coloured bark all year round. It's a delight in winter when the branches are bare, but always looks great when it glistens after rain.  
The autumn leaf colour is a vibrant orange red with minor hints of pink.
Like most maples, it doesn't have showy flowers, but they appear just before the leaves emerge in spring and attract hungry bees.
The flowers mature into winged seeds that do not germinate well, so they are not a nuisance. 

It is a popular, fairly small ornamental tree, suitable for most average sized gardens and will grow on any soil with decent drainage.

Paper Bark Maples can reach a height of about 8-10 metres. 
Old trees will become about as wide as they are tall if they are not pruned. 

Browse our other varieties of Maple trees & hedging, or all of our garden trees.

Features:

• Peeling bark.
• Superb orange & red autumn leaves.
• Any well drained soil.
• Chinese species
• Max. Height: 10m
• RHS Award of Garden Merit
• Pot grown

In the colder, windier parts of Northern England, and Scotland, it has a tendency to develop multiple trunks from ground level, and we think there is no point spending energy on pruning to correct this: more stems means more lovely bark!  

The canopy is an uneven circle that casts quite dense shade in summer, but it comes into leaf late compared to native trees, so early spring flowering bulbs like snowdrops and daffodils do well underneath it.
The bark always looks best against a background of evergreens: hedging such as Yew, Portugal Laurel, or Burkwood is ideal. 

Did You Know? 

Also known as the blood bark maple, it was introduced from central China by Ernest Wilson in 1901 for Veitch nurseries, and was formerly classified as Acer nikoense var. griseum.
Griseum, meaning grey, is hardly an appropriate name for a tree with such glorious colours - it refers to the grey-green undersides of the spring leaves.

At the Stourhead National Trust garden in Somerset, there is a magnificent specimen immediately after the ticket office at the entrance to the park near the Spread Eagle pub. 

Notes on planting Paper Bark Maple trees:
Paper Bark Maple trees will grow well in any soil with average drainage. They are happy on quite moist sites near rivers and lakes, as long as they aren't waterlogged. They tolerate partial shade.
Not suitable for coastal planting or very poor, dry soil.

Prepare your site before planting:
It is good to dig over the site where you plant a tree several months in advance. Kill the weeds first: for tough weeds like nettles, brambles and ground elder, you will usually need a weed-killer to get rid of them. When you dig the soil over, remove stones and other rubbish and mix in well rotted compost or manure down to the depth of about 2 spades.

Watch our video on how to plant a tree for full instructions.
Remember to water establishing trees during dry weather for at least a year after planting.

Tree Planting accessories:
Prepare your site for planting by killing the weeds and grass with Neudorff WeedFree Plus.
You can buy a tree planting pack with a wooden stake & rubber tie to support the tree and a mulch mat with pegs to protect the soil around the base of your tree from weeds and drying out.
We suggest that you use mycorrhizal "friendly fungi" on the roots of all newly planted large trees: if your soil quality is poor, we strongly recommend it.
You can also improve your soil with bonemeal organic fertiliser and Growmore.