Vine Maple ‘Tower’ as it looks today!

When this tree was first posted this spring it was a weird experiment that looked, I thought, ‘like a mangy dog’. There was just ugly sphagnum moss that had a few spots of live moss attached here and there. So it looked a mess, and everyone was very kind to ignore how dreadful the thing was. Or, at least, I didn’t receive any comments about that part.

For those curious about the original post, and the weird nylon contraption that is underneath the moss, here it is: https://crataegus.com/2013/04/01/vine-maple-tower-experiment/

I had hoped for some colonization of green moss this year, and I also hoped the maple would agree to life on a tower. Both thankfully seem to have happened. We did have to water it a lot. And it was protected from the strong summer sun, too, to help it get established. Here’s the maple as it looked in April 2013, after our day of putting it together: