Acer Ample Surprise - Maple

Acer Ample Surprise is a new plant that will appeal to lovers of colourful, compact and robust maples. This hybrid variety, with its compact habit, forms a small tree or large bush which is deciduous and has foliage as its main asset. In spring, it is adorned with young shoots tinged with bronze and red, before turning a beautiful, shiny green in summer, and finally changing to red-orange in autumn. In winter its branches, covered with an almost black bark, are revealed. Easy to grow in any sufficiently deep soil and resistant to diseases, Ample Surprise is also a perfectly hardy plant, suited to smaller gardens. 

The Ample Surprise Maple is a very recent horticultural variety resulting from the cross-breeding between Acer platanoides (the plane maple) and Acer planum, a little-known Chinese species with large growth. All these plants belong to the aceraceae family.

Acer Ample Surprise is a tree with a single trunk that forms a well-branched, dense, slightly spreading crown in its first years. It then spreads more, until it becomes globular and flat. At the age of 10, this maple will reach about 3.50 m (11 ft 6 in) in height and 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in width, the lack of history regarding this new variety making it difficult to predict its size at maturity. At first the young leaves and shoots are strongly tinged with bronze and then red, before turning dark green. In autumn, they turn a flamboyant red-orange. The deciduous leaves are opposite and palmate, 5 to 7 cm (2 to 2.8 in) long with 5 very pointed, dentate lobes, similar to plane tree leaves. Carried by long petioles, they are smooth and shiny. The insignificant flowering, in the form of upright corymbs of tiny yellow-green flowers, appears before the leaves, in March, on subjects aged 15 to 20 years. It gives way, in June, to winged fruits measuring 3 to 5 cm (1.2 to 2 in) in length called samaras. The bark covering the trunk is very dark, almost smooth and brown-grey, almost black.

The Acer Ample Surprise is a very easy-to-grow, undemanding tree, magnificent when isolated in the middle of a small garden or near a terrace. It can also be used as a street tree or in the back of a border, as a free-standing or clipped hedge. At its base, you can plant ground cover perennials such as heuchera, tiarella, stachys or bergenias that will enhance its architectural habit. It pairs perfectly with other trees or shrubs with autumn foliage such as cotinus, hazelnuts or purple beech, Carpinus Orange Retz or Parrotia persica.

Tips: Prune every 3 to 5 years to balance the branches and maintain a harmonious habit.