Norway Maples

I have had a long history of not having any fondness for Norway Maples. I do not like them for their capacity to take up huge amounts of water for growth, the poor crotches they have and large limbs that break and do damage. On top of that they usually get tar spot and this is a fungal pathogen that the tree carries from year to year.
I once had a dinner party at my little Ontario Cottage in Port Hope, I lived in a charming ravine and the street was a one car lane, it was all too charming and friends would gather for great meals prepared by a friend at my house on Sunday nights. This one particular night after a great meal and a fun night one couple left. They were gone 2 minutes and then were back. A Norway Maple across the lane had dropped a huge limb and it landed right down the middle of their little Toyota crushing it from front to back!
I knew these trees were on the invasive species list in Vermont and wrote the Ministry of Environment here in Ontario about them. They are finally on our invasive species list here in Ontario. However, our local municipal government here is still planting them as street trees.
They drop these huge water filled limbs all the time and this could happen to you! Here is an article in the Toronto Star this morning, click here.
If your local government is still planting these trees as street trees get the facts, this tree is invasive and does not make a good street tree, it carries tar spot which is an under studied fungal pathogen that does unknown understudied damage to our native flora.