Acer Species, Three-Toothed Maple, Trident Maple

I'm an Oklahoma gardener and 15 years ago I ordered
some baby maple trees from out of state. One of the trees was a trident maple...Read More. I was delighted as I love maples and was not at all familiar with trident. I made the mistake of planting it about 12 ft. from another tiny maple tree that I had ordered. Result is, now the trident is at least 25 ft tall and just gorgeous. It was watered for the first few months but then left on it's own. I love the fall color and rounded shape of my gorgeous trident maple.

Mine was planted about 10 years ago and is still pretty skimpy. Not sure why--maybe it gets too much shade from nearby evergreens. It's t...Read Morehe second-to-last plant (cotinus is last) in my garden to come out of dormancy. But the fall color is stupendous! A little blue-tinged red mixed in with bright red and orangey red. There is a really beautiful acer buergeranium in a nearby garden, and it gets a fair amount of shade, but it is much older than my tree so I am hoping that I just need to wait it out.

I bought my 12' tall Trident Maple from the professional division of a local Nursery, they planted it, two years ago. It fit the bill for...Read More my lot. It is too soon to give a definitive yes or no, as it seems to be a slow grower. The one branch that was a planting casualty is still a "hole." Fall color was not that interesting - know better to see the actual tree in Fall finery before committing. It was pruned high and into a kinda triangle shape-not sure why, but all that I saw for sale were pruned this way (at more than one nursery).
This Spring has presented a pretty full set of leaves, and it is casting a nice shadow.
It is healthy, sturdy, and growing steadily, nice thick trunk.
I really like the shape of the leaves. Low maintenance, and affordable.

We have actually had problems with our Trident Maple. We purchased it through a landscaper, who installed it four years ago. While it...Read More is leafing out a little more this year, it is a very misshaped tree. Almost no growth on west side. We have contacted the company several times and they did a little pruning and told us to be patient... "It will be beautiful someday". I would be interested to know if anyone else has had this issue with a Trident Maple.