Most restoration purists, and I include myself in this too, think red maples are just downright out of place in a prairie and savanna ecosystem. We're probably right too considering they wouldn't have really colonized the uplands without the absence of fire. And while all summer long they just don't have the rugged character of the fire-dependent ecosystems like the oaks and black cherrys do, I thank myself every fall for not excluding them totally.
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The color they add to the landscape is just too nice to ignore. On my property, the soil is almost all fine-textured clay-loam with the exception of a few sanding spots. This is just the nature of the neighborhood's end moraines as my neighbors have soil that is almost pure sand and some really nice loam. Though, the heavy soils on my property have really allowed red maples to flourish. Rather than ignore them and try to treat the situation as my neighbors would, I have cultivated my restoration project around the idea that a more mesic and even wet-mesic type of prairie and savanna ecosystem would have occured here. With the clearing and burning that has been implemented in the last few years, I have noticed that the remnant flora is reinforcing my decisions too. Shining aster, new england aster, switch grass, boneset, fringed loosestrife and many wetland type sedges have flourished naturally as the fires have been reintroduced. I guess that some red maples may have survived in this wet-mesic type habitat too if there were wet conditions when the fires swept through this area.
