In addition to reducing aesthetics and promoting decay, damaged structures are prime entry points for pests and pathogens. rubrum is prone to damage from storms or mechanical impact, more so than the hardwood maples. rubrum, late summer or early fall pruning is better.įind more tips on pruning maple trees here. This is great for harvesting syrup, but less so for promoting vigorous springtime growth. It protects the roots, conserves soil moisture, and hides what would otherwise be grassless ground.įor the more involved tree-shaping sessions of pruning, you actually shouldn’t prune right before that springtime flush of growth like you would with other plants, because maple wounds bleed sap very profusely. rubrum trees.Īdding three to four inches of mulch beneath the canopy solves many of these issues. These exposed roots, combined with the shade cast by the canopy, make it pretty tough to grow aesthetic turf beneath A. Oftentimes, the surfacemost roots will protrude out of the soil, leaving them vulnerable to structural damage. One thing that’s important to know about maples is how shallow their root systems are. A pH level above 7.0 will most likely lead to chlorosis due to a manganese deficiency, so plant in neutral to slightly acidic soil.For maximum longevity of your trees, keep the soil moist, but ensure that it drains well.Regularly irrigating red maples becomes even more important when they’re planted as street trees.(Footnote - the main image at the top of the article is actually fall foliage on a trident maple, not an Acer palmatum.Red maples planted as street trees have increased water needs, thanks to how compacted their roots tend to become when they grow beside or beneath pavement.įertilizer-wise, it would be smart to work a few inches of compost or well-rotted manure into the soil above the root zone every spring. Protect the young seedlings from late-winter/early-spring cold snaps and then watch them grow! Using a greenhouse, starting them indoors, or otherwise protecting them is a good idea.ĭon't be afraid to experiment with plant genetics - just be prepared for surprises when you do, and embrace the natural variations! The simplest technique is to sow the fresh seed in fall in a tray of soil, keep the tray in a cold but not freezing place until spring and then set it out in the sun. If you instead allow the seed to dry, then you may have to provide stratification. Fresh maple seed can readily germinate quickly without any special treatment. Pick fresh seed in early fall you can judge whether it is ripe by how easily you can remove it from the mother tree. How to Sow Japanese Maple Seeds to Grow Bonsai ![]() Seedlings germinated from the unnamed cultivar below were a mix of lace-leaf red, full-lead red, and a green similar to the parent tree with large green leaves and colorful twigs, seeds, and petioles. You can see from this video that a seedling from this tree, only a few years on from germination, is already showing similar character in the bark: The tree in the image above is obviously a rough-bark variety - the leaves are medium size and the nodes are longer than many cultivars used in bonsai. So, if you want a red-leaf maple bonsai and you sow 50 seeds from your favorite red-leaf Japanese maple, you'll end up with 25 with red leaves (the rest might be green or pink or something else!), and of those 25, ten might have a leaf characteristic that you like. We've found that when we sow seeds from Japanese maples, they will reproduce some approximation of the parent tree's characteristics. Examples of Japanese Maple Bonsai Grown from Seed Even with mature bark there is normally some difference in the color or other characteristics of the bark, making it challenging to create a flawless bonsai. The graft union is an undesirable characteristic for a bonsai and it will normally always be visible - an obvious sign of human intervention. And unlike the wide variation in leaf characteristics you can achieve from sowing seeds, in most cases the grafted tree has predictable foliage characteristics, and is attached to root stock that is more robust than some seedlings (often a normal green-leaf variety of A. Sadly, the common misconception about our ability to start maples from seed leads most of us who want to grow red-leaf Japanese maples to a garden center or specialty nursery, to buy a grafted tree. believe that they cannot grow interesting cultivars of Japanese Maples from seed (maybe it's just a really successful covert marketing campaign from US landscapers?!) The truth is that you can pick seeds from a red-leaf Japanese Maple and sow them, and the result will be healthy seedlings that can have a wide variety of leaf characteristics? ![]() ![]() Starting trees from seed is one of our favorite things, and we want to encourage you to give it a try, too! We're not sure why so many of us in the U.S.
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