Acer campestre Silver Celebration - Field Maple

Acer campestre 'Silver Celebration' is an excellent variegated selection of the field maple, more resistant to the sun. It is a decorative small tree or large bush, with leaves edged with silvery white, pink young shoots and autumn colours. With a rounded and dense habit, it stands out from afar. This elegant, robust, and bright maple will fit well in the garden in an informal hedge or a grove. This undemanding tree also tolerates pruning very well, allowing it to be kept to moderate dimensions.

Acer campestre 'Silver Celebration' is a seedling of the field maple 'Carnival', selected by Junkers Nursery in England in 2001. This variety is less prone to sun scorch than its parent and appears to be more robust. It is a variegated form of the field maple, a forest tree native to Europe, Asia Minor, and North Africa. This 'Silver Celebration' variety develops one or more trunks and a wide crown. It has a fairly slow growth, about 25 to 35 cm per year, and reaches a height of 5 to 10 m with a width of 3 to 4.50 m, depending on the growing conditions. The deciduous foliage of this maple consists of leaves arranged oppositely, measuring 5 to 10 cm wide, with 3 to 5 lobes. Theey are a fairly dark green bordered with silvery white. The young leaves are variegated with pink. Autumn and the first cold weather colours the foliage golden yellow, more or less coppery or orange. The very discreet flowering takes place in spring, at the same time as the leaves emerge. The small flowers are greenish and grouped in corymbs. They are followed by winged fruits, often reddish, called samaras. The wings of this fruit are opposite and perfectly aligned. The field maple has the hardest wood that can be found in this genus. Its bark is pale grey and fissured. The branches of young specimens often have corky, ribbed, insulating, and channelled bark, used for making perches for poultry, which earned it its popular name of chicken wood.

The 'Silver Celebration' Field Maple is an accommodating small tree, it grows in any ordinary soil, even chalky and fairly dry, as long as it is deep enough. It can be placed alone among shrubs with dark foliage, such as purple-leaved weigelas, for example. In a country hedge, it can be mixed with the snowball tree 'Harvest', spindles with autumn colours, ornamental apple trees, and white-flowering spiraeas.