"Would you? Could you?" From my childhood memories, squirrel is very tasty but so many have to die to feed me a meal (I'm a big eater) that I can't really get behind it. Not a fairly advanced mammal, that looks so cute. Now, 1 chicken could feed me a meal. A cow would feed me a number of meals. One squirrel is an appetizer. Your ethics may vary. Richard.

In the latter case if you are in an area with unsuitable autumn weather or soils this can affect results with fall color of maples. The Tatarian maple cultivar is selected for use in areas with alkaline soils etc. but red maples do not color well in alkaline soils - and fall color of seedling red maples varies from yellow to nearly purple depending on the genetics of the individual seedlings. Plantings or wild stands of genetically distinct individuals (rather than multiple specimens of a clonal cultivar) can be a kaleidoscope of different colors in autumn. Root damage I don't see as being related. In fact, if you stuck them in using care to avoid root damage that could have been a mistake. The most important thing when planting a tree is to make sure the roots are spread out in the hole and not kinked or circling, and that the same soil is present throughout the hole, with no zones of differing soils. Intact original soil balls are not desirable unless the backfill soil and the soil around the hole all happen to be the same as the soil inside the rootball - not a usual circumstance.

Not all trees should have a central leader - how that notion came to be so common/popular is beyond me. The majority of shade trees - like red maples - are considered to be of decurrent growth habit, that is, they do NOT form a distinct, single leader. They naturally develop a more even, rounded canopy with several major scaffolding (secondary, trunk-like) branches forming the primary framework. The development and spacing of these major scaffold branches IS of concern and should be monitored when the tree is young. It is counterproductive to attempt to create a single leader situation when it is not present nor called for. Here is a link that might be useful: Structural training of young shade trees

I have a row of 5 Red Sunset Maples. There are about 3 years old. They are about 25' tall but I'm worried that their leaves don't look lush, even though they're young, like other (older) Red Sunset trees down the street from me. FYI: Ours are in full sun, theirs are in shade for late afternoon. My trees receive about 7 gal 2x a week via drip and we are thinking of increasing to 3x per week. We live in SF East Bay where summers can be 90's and we of course are in a drought. What are your thoughts regarding the looks of the trees?