Japanese Maples

[iowa]

Is anyone into Japanese Maples? I moved south to southern Mo. and didn't know anything about these gems. I fell in love with them and now have probably over 30 different cultivars. I have them planted all around my house and in containers. I hope to be able to graft some this spring. They are so beautiful...

 

[iowa]

We have a few dozen cultivars in our plant collection!

Our favorite is Sangu Kaku. We just picked up a couple more at Home Depot for $13. and that makes four of that cultivar

Second most fav......is the cultivar 'Butterfly'.

Those are some nice "common" ones that Lowes carries too. Ever heard of peaches and cream, grandma ghost, purple ghost, first ghost, orange dream, dancing peacock, red dragon, orangealo, or seiryu?? I have several more, but can't think of them off hand. Any of these are wonderful.

If you like the Sangu Kaku, then the Orange Dream you will really like. It's really orange in the fall, greenish during the summer with some pinks. However, the trunk and branches stay a nice red color in the winter.

 

[iowa]

Here's a list of maples we have in the garden. We have multiples of most of them and of course a few aren't japanese maples.




Acer griseum
Acer palmatum atropurpureum 'Bloodgood'
Acer palmatum atropurpureum 'Butterfly'
Acer palmatum atropurpureum dissectum 'Red Dragon'
Acer palmatum dissectum 'Viridis'
Acer palmatum 'Glowing Embers'
Acer palmatum linearilobum
Acer palmatum 'Sango Kaku'
Acer palmatum 'Seryu'
Acer palmatum 'Shigitatsu sawa'
Acer pseudoplatanus
Acer shirasawanum 'Aureum'
Acer triflorum

Yup. I have all of them except the Acer triflorum. The Aureum is quite the specimen isn't it. It is so neat..

 

[S Mc]

Personally, I think you are both being just plain mean! Pictures, gentlemen, Pictures! I know, wrong time of year. I will try to remind you both come spring....

Here in Montana I can count the number of Acer palmatums we have seen in gardens on ONE HAND!

I had to look up the Acer shirasawanum. What a cool looking leaf!

I dearly wish the Acer griseumwas in our hardiness zone. It is borderline according to my resources. How hardy have you found it? Do you think it could survive a bit of chilling?

Sylvia

 

[kruege84]

Personally, I think you are both being just plain mean! Pictures, gentlemen, Pictures! I know, wrong time of year. I will try to remind you both come spring....

Here in Montana I can count the number of Acer palmatums we have seen in gardens on ONE HAND!

I had to look up the Acer shirasawanum. What a cool looking leaf!

I dearly wish the Acer griseumwas in our hardiness zone. It is borderline according to my resources. How hardy have you found it? Do you think it could survive a bit of chilling?

Sylvia

I like the paperbark maples too! If it's borderline to your hardiness zone, think about micro-climates. If your able to protect it from prevailing winds and mulch it heavily for the winter, you should be able to get by. I've never done burlap fence around anything deciduous, but it might not hurt.

One thing to look into before you purchase the tree is the seed source. This can be important, or so I have been taught. Redbuds, for example, will grow in Michigan and all the way down to Florida. However, a redbud from a Florida seed source will not perform well in Michigan.

I say go for it!

 

[iowa]

Personally, I think you are both being just plain mean! Pictures, gentlemen, Pictures! I know, wrong time of year. I will try to remind you both come spring....

Here in Montana I can count the number of Acer palmatums we have seen in gardens on ONE HAND!

I had to look up the Acer shirasawanum. What a cool looking leaf!

I dearly wish the Acer griseumwas in our hardiness zone. It is borderline according to my resources. How hardy have you found it? Do you think it could survive a bit of chilling?

Sylvia

There are a couple Jap. maples that are hardy up to minn. I believe one is called the Korean Maple. However, if you could keep them in a container, they can be brought into your garage over the winter. Just keep them watered though. Also if they leaf out in the spring and you have a "late" frost. Then you can bring them back into the garage for the night.

Pictures!!! I may just have some!!! Fall pictures too..

 

[S Mc]

kruege84, thank you for the encouragement. We may just have to try it. One of my personal goals in our Valley is to educate people and get them to venture outside the box. There is more to (arboricultural) life than poplars, Norway maples, Autumn Blaze and Quaking aspen. There are so many fun and beautiful trees out there...people just need to know about them and see that they will prosper.

The burlap trick is how one of our clients has successfully kept her Japanese maple alive here. That and that it is planted in a protected area. Most people aren't willing to go to that level of care for their trees, however.

Sylvia

 

[iowa]

more...

 

[S Mc]

Thank you, Iowa, for posting the pictures. The Korean maple has been sampled here and given the thumbs down by one of our prominent nurserymen. However, being fair I believe they were testing it without any special care. I wonder how it would fair with special site consideration as kruege84 mentioned.

Here in our valley one of the problems we encounter on a very regular basis is early bud break and late frosts. It really is so typical that I'm not sure we should even call them "late". The experienced gardeners won't plant their vegetable gardens until June 1. So can be a bit challenging.

However, containerizing and a bit of protection could bring in some fun cultivars. Will have to get experimental here.

Sylvia

 

[iowa]

There are pictures of other trees than just jap. maples on the last post above. I have October Glory, August Blaze, Austrian Black Pine, Eastern Redbuds, King Crimson Maple (favorite), Weeping Willow, Cinnamon Birch, Loblolly pine, Cleveland Pear, and several others. hmmm.

I moved into a subdivision and we all have around 4acres. I'm kinda known as the "tree man". LOL. I started planting trees the first week we moved in. It's just kinda grown. I've probably put in over 75 trees in this rocky god fer saken ground here. I don't know why and how trees grow so fast here, but they do.

My wife thought I was crazy planting so many trees and watering them 2 drought yrs. in a row. But now that they are really taken off and I've done some trimming on them, she is like WOW. Our lot looks way better than the neighbors LOL..

 

[iowa]

Thank you, Iowa, for posting the pictures. The Korean maple has been sampled here and given the thumbs down by one of our prominent nurserymen. However, being fair I believe they were testing it without any special care. I wonder how it would fair with special site consideration as kruege84 mentioned.

Here in our valley one of the problems we encounter on a very regular basis is early bud break and late frosts. It really is so typical that I'm not sure we should even call them "late". The experienced gardeners won't plant their vegetable gardens until June 1. So can be a bit challenging.

However, containerizing and a bit of protection could bring in some fun cultivars. Will have to get experimental here.

Sylvia

We encountered a bad late frost here 2 yrs. ago. It was in the 70's for over 2 weeks and all the trees bud and leafed out. For 3 days straight after that we had 25-28 deg. nights with blowing north winds. Needless to say most everyones jap. maples here died. All laceleafs were toast, even very mature trees. Unless they were on the south side of a large building and someone covered them. I lost 95% of mine which I had over $2,000 invested in them. I was devistated. I also lost my weeping mulberry which was just looking fantastic. Last yr. we also had a late freeze scare. Most fruit trees did not produce. I did go out and cover every maple that I had outside with blankets and towels. They all survived with no damage..

 

[S Mc]

Iowa, I just saw your second set of pics. I was posting, evidently, at the same time you were. Fantastic of you to keep planting. I wish more people would do so.

A word of caution. Some of the mulch on your trees is a bit high on the trunks. Be sure you have it pulled away so as not to actually touch the trunk.

A beautiful place!

Sylvia

 

[trimmmed]

Maple pictures you say.........okey dokey be right back. The fall colors this year were wonderful and i did take some. i dont know the names i just call em red, green cutleaf of not, lol.

 

[trimmmed]

Might be some doubles in here, lol

 

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[trimmmed]

Hey, this last one is not a maple but also had some nice color