Lucky you. I live in town so I don't have all that wonderful space to work with. I was on my way to the post office this morning and stopped to get a couple pictures of the maples here as well as to confirm something. You can plainly see which maples have the fungus and which don't even from a distance. You can tell by the color of the leaves. The trees here that have no fungus have nice uniform yellow, orange, or red fall colors. The infected trees either already lost all of their leaves or they are blotchy. Some parts of the leaves have changed to fall colors while others are still green along with the ugly black spots. Also, the trees with the fungus have more dead wood than those without. No doubt that these black spots inhibit photosynthesis on the severely infected trees gradually weakening them. The only maples it doesn't seem to affect are Japanese Maples. Also, maples appear to the only trees susceptible to it. As I said before, Adrian is full of maples and nearly all are infected with this fungus.
With only one maple, you should be able to stop it. You are going to have to be diligent though. I'd be out every weekend raking up leaves. Even if there is snow and then a warm spell where it all melts...I'd be right back out there raking up whatever you might have missed.
Infected tree. See how it's blotchy...nothing is uniform about it. There is also a bunch of dead wood on this tree.
2 city blocks away, a fungus free maple. Notice the leaves are all a uniform color.
Below is what I found underneath the uninfected tree. Mixed in with the leaves there are leaves from an infected tree blown by the wind. It's only a matter of time before this tree succumbs as well. Nearly impossible to control in town.
