W3rdSmyth

Adam, thanks, that does confirm something for me about a setup I was thinking about last night. See, I live in an apartment building on the ground floor with a giant brick patio and some nice large flower beds. I have balcony decks 10 feet above my patio, and 6 foot tall picket all the way around my patio so I'm well sheltered/shaded. Pretty much perfect for my trees.

Now, I'm on the ground floor and we have a large laundry room in the basement, and the basement has some of those small windows up near the ceiling as many basements do. Well, on the outside, there is a two foot deep pit with a curved metal wall around it in the ground where the window is to allow in light. One of those is actually on my patio, and it's against the back of my apartment, underneath the upstairs deck so it's nice and shady. My plan I thought of last night was to put gravel and mulch down in that hole and put the maple down inside of that. It would be completely protected from sun and wind and would be in a pit with a window (boarded up on the inside by the way so no one could see my tree). I would build a lean-to frame with opaque plastic to cover over the top of the hole and protect the tree further from being disturbed. When it snows I can throw snow in there, no problem.

I think this sounds like my best and most reasonable plan. I really need to put up some pictures of my situation to make it more apparent how I'm set up, but I think I can take advantage of that hole area outisde the basement window.