Bigtooth Maple in Austin: Why It Costs More and Where to Plant One

A bigtooth maple is a Texas native maple, and in Austin it costs more than most of the ornamental trees we plant. What a nursery tree costs is a product of how labor-intensive and lengthy it is to get that tree ready for market, and that is where this one’s price comes from. It is the same reason they are really hard to get a hold of. The price is a fact about the farm, not a verdict on the tree.

At a Glance

Why a Bigtooth Maple Costs More

It is on the expensive list, and it is really hard to get a hold of. A tree’s price at the nursery is a product of the difficulty of preparing that stock for the market (labor-intensive, lengthy work), and the species that are hardest to get ready for market end up both scarce and expensive. The price and the scarcity come from the same place.

In almost every other market a higher price is a quality signal, and people read trees the same way. Here it is a production signal. You are not paying for a better tree than the redbud or the Mexican plum sitting next to it on the ornamental side.

Judge a bigtooth maple against the other ornamentals on what it will actually do in your yard: the size, the site it wants, the look you are after. Treat the price as a fact about how the tree got to the lot rather than a fact about the tree. If the only reason you want one is that it is the expensive option, that is the wrong reason, and I will tell you so standing in your yard.

What the price does legitimately tell you is that this is a decision worth making before anything gets ordered, not after. How we go about picking and siting a tree is on the tree planting page. The general version of the argument, which is to pick the tree for the site rather than the site for the tree, is in how to pick a tree.

Where to Plant One in Central Texas

Bigtooth maples prefer some sun protection and they like well-drained soil. For those reasons they are a little more finicky than the rest of what we plant, and they get planted less often than they might.

They do well in a lot of environments with artificial irrigation. That widens the range of sites considerably, and this is not a fragile tree.

The drainage half is the one I would think hardest about here. We frequently run into shallow soils in this area with bedrock very close to the surface. Where the rock naturally has cracks running through it, it is safe to chisel a bigger hole into it. Where it is a solid boulder or a ledge, chiseling is not okay, because what you have made is a bowl that does not drain. On a species that specifically wants good drainage, a bowl is the thing you least want to build around its roots. It is fine to plant slightly above grade and build soil up around the root ball instead. On a sloped, very rocky yard, retaining walls and backfilled soil are an expensive treatment and a genuinely effective one.

None of that is knowable from the sidewalk, which is why on a tree at this price the site conversation should come first. On an ordinary residential planting we hand dig the holes, and when we hit an irrigation pipe or a ledge we move over a little to avoid it. So the obstruction gets found, one way or another. Better to find it before you have bought the tree.

For watering a tree that has just gone in, the numbers are in how to water a newly planted tree, and the planting-season windows and the warranty live on the tree planting page.

Make Sure the Tree You Are Buying Is the Tree You Asked For

This species has a naming problem.

Start with the tree itself. Some authorities treat bigtooth maple as a full species, Acer grandidentatum. Others treat it as a subspecies of sugar maple, Acer saccharum subsp. grandidentatum. Both positions are current and you will find major references on either side.

Now add ‘Caddo’. A ‘Caddo’ maple is a different species. It is a true sugar maple, Acer saccharum, an ecotype out of Caddo County in southwest Oklahoma that was selected for heat and scorch tolerance. Two things drive the mix-up. Horticultural writing pairs bigtooth and ‘Caddo’ together as the two maples that will tolerate high-pH Texas soil, so they turn up in the same sentence. And if you accept the subspecies treatment above, the two of them collapse into a single species name, which makes the distinction look like hair-splitting when it is not.

Then the trade names finish the job. The patented cultivar names are nearly identical: ‘JFS-NuMex 3’ is a bigtooth maple. ‘JFS-Caddo2’ is a sugar maple. Those are two different trees with two labels a person could read as the same product.

Common names routinely cover more than one tree, and here they are doing it at three levels at once: the species name, the cultivar name and the trade name. Two questions settle almost all of it, so ask them before the tree goes on a truck: what is the seed source, and where was this tree grown? They are invisible unless you know to ask, and the answers tell you what you are actually buying.

If what you want to know is whether the maple already in your yard is one, that is a question for somebody standing under it.

If Fall Color Is the Reason You Want One

On a red oak here, fall color is decided months before the fall. Red oak is the tree people here buy specifically for color, and a hot dry summer scorches the foliage and the leaves just turn brown and drop, while a mild summer or decent rain gives you a beautiful fall color instead. Same tree, same yard, different summer. There is more on that in the red oak entry.

So if color is the whole reason you want a bigtooth maple, say so out loud when we talk. That is a different conversation from picking a tree for its size and its site, and it is worth having before you go looking for one.

Our Take

This is a good tree, and it gets planted less often than it might because it is a little more finicky about sun and soil than most of what we plant. That is not a reason to rule it out if the site suits it; it is a reason to make the decision deliberately. The price is a separate matter and a farm one: it costs more than most of the ornamental trees we plant, because of the labor-intensive, lengthy work it takes to get one ready for market.

One more frame worth carrying into any ornamental purchase, this one included. The purpose of an ornamental is not to be gigantic in the landscape, it is to give some scale, so what you are buying is a tree with a planned end rather than a fixture. Where this one’s end sits is worth knowing before you decide. A bigtooth maple is a twenty-foot tree, and nearby competition and growing conditions will affect that considerably. It lives sixty years, which is what a chinquapin oak lives. That is a long way from a three-hundred-year live oak, and it is also a long way from the twenty years you get out of a redbud. Knowing where the tree you are buying falls between those is what lets you plan for it instead of being surprised by it.

If you want a bigtooth maple, the two hard parts are finding one and putting it somewhere that suits it. Both are worth a conversation before any money moves. Call (512) 996-9100 or get in touch and we will come look at the spot.

More Trees for Central Texas

• Chitalpa: the other ornamental on the list that is hard to get a hold of, for its own reasons
• Anacacho orchid tree: another small native ornamental, and one where the buying question is which seed source you get
• Eve’s necklace: an under-used native ornamental with year-round interest
• The Central Texas Field Guide: every species we have written up, grouped by what you want the tree to do