What do healthy red maple saplings look like?

Question

Last year I had to cut down a red maple tree. I was able to save three of its offspring.

One is ~2' tall and I moved it from where it volunteered behind a bush to the middle of the yard.

Another is ~8" tall and spent most of last year in a pot. Buried the pot in the ground in early fall.

The last one is a pure untouched volunteer, ~6" tall growing right up against the stump of the old tree.

How can I tell if these saplings survived the winter?

I see very small buds on all of them. Should these buds be hard or soft?

What other signs indicate a healthy, young red maple sapling?

Answer 1

If you can pull a bud apart and it is still green inside, then things are looking good. If the buds are dry and brittle and don't show any life inside, then you may have a dead sapling. On the saplings that have branches, if the buds are not looking good, you can gently scrape a bit of bark off of the branch and look for a green layer. In any case, since it will soon be spring, you can always wait a few weeks and see which ones begin to leaf out, and that will be a definitive answer about which are healthy and survived the winter.