Keep your maples healthy & hearty by learning to recognize common maple tree diseases & knowing how to prevent or treat them ...

Sugar maple trees have leaves that look the the one on the Canadian flag, branches and twigs that grow in opposite directions, light gray and peeling bark, and reddish-brown buds.

1. Reduce 10 gallons of maple sap into one gallon of sugary fluid. Check the sugar content with a triple hydrometer (if you have one). The specific gravity should read 1.100 or near that mark.

Sugar maples attract 297 species of butterflies and moths, providing a source of food for baby birds and other insect-eating birds. The two-winged seeds, known as samaras, are eaten by wildlife.

She added that the older the tree, the more nutrients it has to offer. For a syrup with a flavor most similar to maple syrup found in stores, use a sugar maple tree.

Environmental students at Keystone College call it bark to bottle: tap the tree, boil the sap, and bottle the syrup, but this year, there wasn't much of the process.

It might have been Dave Amerikaner’s first time tapping a sugar maple tree, but even as an amateur, he could tell the fast-flowing stream was a lot of sap. Sap was falling from branches, running ...

Reach him via Katie Rohman at [email protected]. A young sugar maple tree as seen in the forest in late March. Note the bark being stripped by gray squirrels to get to the sap beneath.