We have six large maples that are half a century old framing our house. I love the dappled light they make on the house in the morning and evening and the shade they provide in the summer. They put on quite a show in the fall as well.
There are a few downsides to having six large maple trees on your property, though. They shed a lot of leaves in the fall. A lot. We have to pick up twigs and branches regularly in the yard to keep it tidy and save the mower blades. Despite having the trees professionally crowned and cleaned last year, they still lose large branches when it’s really windy. The other downside is those trees make a mess in the spring. I didn’t really notice it last year, but I was pretty preoccupied with the kitchen renovation. Since I’ve been outside a lot more this April, I’ve noticed all of the fluffy maple flowers that are stuck in the grass, gathered along the curbs and sprinkled over all of the beds.
As I was cleaning some of the flower fluff out of the garden beds, I held a clump in my palm and paused to look at it. It was just a tiny fraction of the cross-pollination efforts scattered all over our yard, in our gutters, on the lawn, and blown around the neighborhood. When it comes time, I don’t know how many seeds a large maple spews out (I’m sure I could Google it, but I’ll remain curious), but I know from observation that it’s a lot.
As I scooped up more of the fluff to put in my weed bucket, I realized that I had only seen one maple sapling in our yard that had been growing undisturbed. We’ll have some little saplings poke up in May, but they quickly die after being mowed or pulled. One maple tree has grown in a corner of the yard at the edge of our property, hidden behind a tall row of mature arborvitae. It’s actually growing up between some broken fence pickets and has simply gone unnoticed long enough to grow to a thin and wiry 6-7′ or so. I told Jeff about it as I was writing this post and he said, “Oh yeah, well, you realized that’s coming out, right?” Yes, of course. We don’t want a maple tree growing there. So, in our yard, none of them will make it to become the seventh maple tree.
Despite that fact, I find the behavior of these maple trees to be inspirational. Allow me to share the analogies I thought about these maple trees as I was watering some of my new bushes and perennials…
They throw out millions of chances for a tree to take root.
A maple tree doesn’t assume that one or two flowers for cross-pollinating or one or two seeds scattered will be enough. It greatly increases the chances by throwing out thousands and thousands of seeds. And, the key is the expectation isn’t that there will be thousands and thousands of new maple trees. The expectation is that one or two might take root and become a mature maple.
They don’t wait for the perfect conditions or only drop seeds in perfect places.
Maple trees aren’t picky. They don’t freeze and overthink if their seeds go to the right place. They are trying to grow little maples on our car, our roof, in gutters, in cracks in our driveway, on top of plastic I’ve put down to smother my current nemesis in life (Bishop’s Weed), on our mailbox, and anywhere else they may land. My car windshield is a terrible place to grow a tree, but the maple tree doesn’t worry about that. It just produces and scatters the seed and then continues on with its seasonal cycle.
They create prolifically each year regardless of the outcome.
Even though there is only one soon-to-be-removed maple sapling growing in our yard, the six trees haven’t stopped producing and dripping seeds each year. They are unbothered and unaffected by the results. They just do what they are created to do. There is a quiet confidence, steadiness, and maturity in being unaffected by the results of your efforts.
A season of prolific creation followed by growth is followed by letting go and then rest.
The maple trees don’t produce seeds year-round, thankfully! They produce for a short window, prolifically, and then they stretch their branches a bit and leaf out. Those leaves soak in the summer sun, feeding the tree. When the temperatures start to drop, they let go of all of those leaves to prepare for a season of rest. It’s a cycle. Each season and part of the process is imperative for the overall health of the tree. It can’t rest indefinitely. It can’t hold onto all of the leaves indefinitely. It has to submit to change.
We live in a fast world that tries to disregard seasons. Production is applauded. Rest is for the lazy. Growth should be a steady line climbing upward. Letting go should be scary, perhaps viewed as a surrender. Prolific creativity should be consistent and a lull might mean your best work is behind you. Ideas that never sprout and grow are a waste of time. You need to babysit your ideas to make sure they are liked, make sure they take root. Casting out too many ideas means you’re scattered, unfocused, a generalist, and unable to follow through.
Whenever you buy into any or all of these things that the world or the inner critic tells you, meditate on the maple tree.
24 Responses
I love this post, but I have to point out that the “fluffy seeds” you are referring to are NOT coming from the maple trees! The maple tree seeds are not fluffy at all, they are winged keys and they float down from the trees like spinning helicopters during late summer/fall. If you are seeing white fluff with seeds in it, that’s coming from the poplars in the area.
So, I had to look it up because these are definitely coming from our maple trees! They are the flowers of sugar maples. This is when the tree is cross-pollinating, so they are a part of the seeding process but aren’t specifically seeds. Well, now I know more and I updated the post to accurately reflect what I’m observing. 🙂
Okay, yes, maples do produce lots of little flowers and they will fall to the ground and cover everything as they are pollinated and after a rain or winds. They can be really pretty on the ground, and different colors, depending on the variety of maple.
If we could all just follow as nature does without the constraints and demands of others and do what and who we are meant to be.
Is it possible to tap them for making maple syrup?
Beautifully written
I’m in Minnesota, and the maples are doing that here too. It is an unusual amount of seeds. I’m pretty tuned into those trees because I have planted all of them myself. I also noticed all over my neighborhood and town that there is an unusual amount of seeds, to the point where the trees look like they’re getting yellow leaves. I think it has to do with the rare mild winter we had this year.
Interesting. I planted a red maple about five years ago; there are no seeds or flowers, just beautiful leaves filling up the branches. Since I live on a small city lot, I didn’t want the tree to grow tall and be messy in the yard and gutters. So I’ve been trimming the crown every year to maintain an 8 foot height. It’a grown to a lovely football shape.
Ours are sugar maples and they do get flowers. We had silver maples at our last house and they didn’t (that I noticed.)
Thanks for this fabulous post! We are lucky enough to live in a neighborhood with many 100-year-old maples, and it’s a nonstop battle trying to keep up with the thousands of maple spinners and seedlings. We love the trees nonetheless, and your perspective added even more to my enjoyment of them.
We lived with (
11) 100 year old maples for 30 years. Every Fall, my husband raked them all up and put them on his garden. We had the most prolific and beautiful garden in the neighborhood and our vegetables were completely organic. The best fertilizer!
Beautifully thought and written analogy Marian
Thank you
YOU are good for my soul.
As Jeff does good for his parishioners…YOU do good for yours…(I feel like your blog followers are your parishioners…or at least I am) Your gentle guidance, thoughts and advice are a comfort. And, I’m not at all a religious person, but I do find comfort in you. THANK YOU FOR BEING YOU and letting us into your world. If Jeff needs a day off, you can easily step in!
One of my favorite posts you’ve ever written, not that that matters, as I eagerly look forward to all your posts, but this one resonated deeply. Keep on keepin on! Much love!
I grew up in Geauga County, Ohio where the maples were prolific. Maple syrup was processed and we even had a festival. They are a beautiful, giving tree with lovely colors in the fall.
Sugar maples have soft branches and twigs so they do “shed them” quite a bit. We have two and they are very manageable. We save and break the branches for kindling for our fire pit and fireplace. 6 or 7 is too much of a good thing. Go down to 4 and if that’s too much then 2? You don’t want to spend all your time cleaning up sticks or raking and the whirlies(seed pods) are murder on clogging up gutters. We had to have ours cleaned out they were so bad! Maybe add some quick growing evergreens in place of a few of them and maybe something that blooms in the spring for some pretty color.
Just caught up on a few of the unread posts that were in my inbox from the last 2 weeks. Loved the insight from observing the maple tree – doing what it was created to do, without waiting for the perfect time & conditions. Once upon a time, my dad said, “if we had waited for the perfect time to have any of you (six kids), we wouldn’t have had any of you” – so true. Sometimes, actually at all times, taking the clues from God’s creation is the most inspiring – for so many reasons and in so many seasons.
Next to oaks, sugar maples are the best keystone native trees in the ecosystem.
Loved your analogy and how beautifully, thoughtfully you shared it, thank you!!
Love that we live in an ‘old’ yard neighborhood. Love how the trees in all seasons speak to us of God’s creation and other reminders of His goodness and mercy.
Wonderful imaginitive creative writing with thought provoking spiritual significance for this old heart of mine. Thank you!
Thank You for the very encouraging words. They are also a reminder of my Aunties. When they would get together, usually camping in one of their yards. Someone had a poem they had penned or something rather profound to say. In the same way you have written about the maples.
Thank You.
Beautiful post and lovely responses, also. I similarly meditate upon a cottonwood on our place. It came from a volunteer, sheds messily during two parts of its spring and again as leaves fall. At times I am aggravated. In between it provides the most beautiful rustling sound and amazing patterns of dappled sunlight. Indeed, it is doing what it was created to do, as you so wisely put it.
Maple trees are beautiful, and a gift of nature. My mature maple seeds baby trees in my gardens every year. This year I have three beautiful seedlings. I pot them up and give them away at my Farm Markets. The new owners are always grateful to have a pretty maple to plant on their lawn. A beautiful quote I found last year referring to trees: “He who plants a tree loves others”.