Maple seedlings are popping up everywhere this spring

(WFSB) - If you’ve noticed tiny red-leaved tree seedlings in your lawn or garden, you’re not alone.

Many Connecticut residents have been reporting them popping up in their neighborhoods recently.

These small trees are a sign that maple trees are responding to our changing climate.

It doesn’t have experts so much concerned, as it does have them wondering how repeated years of heavy rains will impact the forests and wooded areas in Connecticut.

This year, the excessive number of seedlings are a product of stress, most notably the wet and warm weather we experienced last summer.

This caused a significant number of maple trees to put much more of their energy into seed production, especially when compared to a normal year.

That’s on top of the stress of a foliar fungus that caused leaves last fall to turn brown and fall off faster; limiting the vibrant autumn colors we typically see in September and October.

Just one of these stressors is enough to force mature maple trees into a hyperdrive of seed production; but with all of them occurring simultaneously it’s a “perfect storm” to get millions of seedlings to grow.

Experts like Thomas Worthley, Forest Extension Professor at UConn, say if you don’t want these seedlings in your lawn or garden, you don’t have to do much to get rid of them. Cutting your lawn regularly is enough to limit growth and an eventual die-off will occur.

Plucking them from your garden and replanting them on a north facing hill that gets a lot of sunshine, should be enough to get them to grow quickly and root deep enough so that they will survive for more than just one season.