Waterfall (Acer palmatum dissectum “Waterfall”
They say you should never prune these dissectum maples to fit a space by cutting back the edges. But since I planted it in the wrong spot and didn’t give it room to grow so I have to trim it every year. It’s a tricky dance but so far I think I’ve done a pretty good job of it. We’ll see how it looks as time goes on. It turns a brilliant shade of orange-red in the fall.
Shirazz (Acer palmatum “Shirazz”)
This one is a bit wonky looking now. It froze back very badly a couple of years ago and only the base of the trunk stayed alive. I was heartbroken, so I talked to the nursery and they said they’d never heard of a Japanese maple freezing around here. Of course it happened to me! It’s got lovely variegated foliage and turns a wonderful bright red in the fall.
Bloodgood (Acer palmatum “Bloodgood”)
This is an old variety. It’s been around for a hundred or more years. It was found in an old churchyard on the east coast. It has these wonderful dark red leaves all year and turns an even darker flush of deep reddish-purple in the fall. Truly lovely.
Red Pygmy (Acer palmatum “Red Pygmy”)
This is a dwarf variety that is only supposed to get 10 feet tall, which it is already after 10 years or so. It has dark red leaves when it first leafs out but it turns to a greenish red over the summer, before changing to a fiery orange in the fall.
Red Dragon (Acer palmatum dissectum “Red Dragon”)
Another dissectum that has deeply cut leaves and is always this incredible deep red. In the fall it turns an even darker shade of red and is very showy. It may get too big for the deck and I don’t know what I’ll do then. I’m sure something will work out.
Lion’s Head (Acer palmatum “Shishigashira”)
This is an old cultivar that has deeply crinkled leaves. In the fall it blazes with bright orange-red color. It’s a late one that opens late and stays in leaf late, well beyond the others. It’s a treat to have it here!
Twomblys’ Red Sentinel (Acer palmatum “Twombly’s Red Sentinel”)
This is our latest acquisition. We only had a space for it recently when an old arborvitae here was crushed by the February snow and we had to take it out. This is a unique one in that it’s the only Japanese maple that is columnar in its growth habit. It only gets 10 feet wide at most. It will stay this color all year and in fall will turn dark red. It’s a sport off an old Bloodgood.
Roseo Marginatum (Acer palmatum “Kagiri Nishiki”)
This is the first Japanese Maple I ever bought, back in the early 70’s, for my parent’s yard. It’s got unique leaves that are all different and have a sickle shape to them, with creamy white and pink variegation to the margins with green on the inside. Because it’s on the north side of the garage the inner leaves are shaded and are often yellow or orange as you can see here. It’ll turn a lovely orange fall color.
Floating Cloud (Acer palmatum “Ukigumo”)
This is named for its beautiful “floating cloud” effect when it’s in leaf like this. It has creamy white leaves with pink margins. It turns a deep orange-red in the fall. It really does look like it’s floating in the garden here. I love the planes of the foliage.
Coral Bark (Acer palmatum “Sango Kaku”)
This one is known by the new red stems you can see when the limbs are young. They’re called Coral Bark because they resemble the towers of coral rising from the sea. You can’t see the red stems now because there are too many leaves, but they’re there. You can see them when you look up into the tree. It’s the largest one we have, getting to 25 or 30 feet tall and wide. It’s a great feel to walk under it to the door.
These are all the Japanese maples we’ve got here in our little garden sanctuary. I’d love to have more but we’re out of room and are so happy to have such a nice variety in the ones we have. They’re all different in some ways so we get a large tapestry of colors and shapes and sizes. A couple of them get big but most are dwarfs and will stay small forever, or at least sort of small. Is 15 feet small to you? To a tree it is. I like them when they get taller than I am. Then they feel like a real tree to me. They all seem to grow very fast and none of these is older than about 9 or 10 years, at least in our garden. Who knows how old they were when we planted them. This is why the normal 10 year sizes they usually say on the labels are always off and much smaller than reality. You really have to just let them grow to see how big they’ll eventually get.
I hope you enjoyed this little tour of the Japanese Maples we have here. A Northwest garden would be incomplete without at least a couple of them as well as the ubiquitous rhododendrons. We have a lot of them too. Add in the ferns and conifers and you have most of our garden. It’s a unique collection of over 200 individual specimens, each different in some way from all the others. I’ve got botanical labels on all the plants so you can see their common names, botanical names, families and origins. They help me remember them all… 😉
Thanks for visiting our maple collection!
Steve
Gardening in Greenwood 