Japanese maples or Japanese Acers are my passion! If it's Red, Green or Yellow Japanese maples, full size, dwarf, upright, weeping, I love them all. If its watering, feeding, drainage, pruning, repotting or selecting cultivars, I hope to help others by sharing my experience of growing them. As well as how to care for maples I enjoy visiting locations across the UK to see them in their full grown glory. This could be spring summer or the autumn (fall) as they way these trees change colour throughout the year is truly amazing. Many of my trees are grown in pots, but some in the ground also and I am happy to advise on what to do if people have problems.
Hi Carl, i also lost a branch because of friction 😂 it was a tomato stick that should stabilize the branch in the wind but instead it ended without bark 😅 lesson learned.
Thanks for another great video Carl. I've actually just noticed that my Orange Dream's leaves have been skeletonised very similar to a problem I had with a couple of my roses a few years ago that were affected by the rose say fly larvae. I'm guessing this is a similar problem so do you think the Isopropanol would work for this. Apart from a couple of new leaves every leaf has been affected so may be too late.
@@nettym659 definitely worth a go, it seems to work really well and evaporates really quickly. Seems a cheaper and better option than using some sort of pesticide 👍
Brilliant again Carl . your advice and tips have helped me keep my 26 Japanese acers looking great. Heard you mention about staking some of yours, are there any important rules or recommendations regarding staking ? I will have to check your videos in case you have already covered that issue. Thanks great work.
Thanks Robert, to be honest I just have a stake close to the trunk to offer support if needed. I find potting on slowly helps as I roots fill the pot adding stability. Staking up the leader on the Red Willow just gives it more height until the trunk hardens off. I’ll see if I can include something in a video soon 👍
So many great tips! Its really useful that you show examples of each problem. Just one more to add would be raise the pots off the ground with pot feet or put them on gravel like you have so they don't get root rot in wet weather!
This with grafting because not good on own roots is not right ihave over 50 treesonownroot Noprops at all this is thegrowerstryingto Fool aus it's all for money Thanks Carl keep up the good work mate thanks
@@Japanesemaples I think i'm gonna test it out as well, I got both isopropanol and milldew so lets go haha. I just wasnt sure if it would hurt the tree, but if you use it for bugs on your maples its worth giving it a try. I have read that UVC light also kills milldew btw.
@@XraycatNL let me know how you get on ! I bought the tree with Mildew half price and have not experienced it before. Not attractive but I doubt it will do any harm long term. Always good to solve the underlying problem and I'm really tempted to downsize the pot....
@@Japanesemaples Yeah its also a first for me, from what i could gather its because of warm humid weather. Its unsightfull but doesnt harm the tree and there's a good chance it wont return when it has dropped leaf. It can spread to other plants via wind so you might want to keep an eye out for that.
@@Japanesemaples thank you for your response, you say mature compost is that a soil based or vegitation based? I always thought a composted bark mix was good for Acers but I value your opinion, do you use any osmocote with it?
@@4cds14 there is a trade off and I use just plain John Innes No.3 compost ie. soil based. You can use a really free draining compost like the growers used, however while it will never make the roots rot, it looses water very fast. If you can water daily in the summer then freer draining compost is fine, however my mix with a sensible sized pot and good drainage works really well. Bare in mind I pot on slowly now and I slip pot so the compost it ships with is still a big percentage!
@@Japanesemaples thank you, I use John Ines No.3 ( I normally buy the Levingtons brand but the last batch of bags were no longer soil based, very fibrous) with composted bark at about 40% but I will try some ericaceous. Thanks again.
Even in full sun and hot temps (zone 7a) I only have to water my potted Mayday JM (about 10" tall) about once a week. I flood the pot, water drains out the bottom, but the soil stays moist for about a week. The plant looks good. I'm surprised at how little moisture the plant takes from the soil. Do I need to make changes?
I did this too, it worked! I planted a new 5 g beautiful fire glow early summer, one day in June it got zapped by too much direct afternoon sun, all leaves had various amounts of damage. I transplanted it immediately for more afternoon shade, crossed my fingers and defoliated it, took a couple of hours as it was otherwise very healthy with a lot of leaves. About 3 to 4 weeks latter all the leaves are leafing out - 😅 whew!!
Its the sun light its self these maples sit in 100 plus degrees in green houses but aren’t exposed to direct sun light they sit under 50% white shade cloth then you or me or someone else buys them then puts them in direct sun light so it evaporates the water out of the leaves and also drys the soul out so the roots dry out and have no water to supply the leaves
I think your right in that they need to be acclimated and I’ve talked about this very subject in my latest video. The place I feature has all trees outside so solves this problem 👍
The attached video may help, but no maples are really rated for zone 10. If they are in lots of shade and really well sheltered from wind it could work. I have seen maples in a Polly tunnel at 50 degrees centigrade BUT there was zero wind or direct sunlight 🤔 Japanese Maples: Secrets of selection, avoid burnt damaged leaves! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TLoCk04KTY0.html
I have a Red Dragon which is supposed to do fine in full sun but definitely getting crisped up so i just moved it into the shadier and a less windy area. I live in NJ USA
So glad I've found your channel, so much great information. Could you tell me what time of year is best to remove my acer from its pot to saw off some of the root ball?
Wow those big trees are gorgeous! I really like the yellow toned dissected ones. Its funny that the bloodgoods there all had different shades of leaf colour
Wow! Having watched this video I now realize the number of mistakes I've made and I'm surprised that any of my maples have survived, but they have. I really have been over-watering. I'm going to buy a moisture meter right now!. Thank you for your advice. By the way, I recently purchased a Beni Maiko from an online nursery, and when it arrived it had powdery mildew. I experimented by mixing one part of the water from a bag of mozzarella to six parts water and spraying the plant daily to kill off the mildew. After five days the mildew is slowly disappearing. It must be the dilute lactic acid being unfavorable to the powdery mildew. So far so good.
You have provided so much useful information for me. I have an autumn frost sapling and was wondering what kind of sun or shade conditions they might like?
Don’t know that cultivar I’m afraid but here’s what I would do. Start with morning sun and afternoon shade, then once acclimated after a few weeks try more sun. Monitor and learn what’s best for your tree 🌴
Great video! Oh dear, think my Osakazuki is in the wrong place 🤦♀. Too near my front window. When's the best time to prune it? Don't think I can move it.
Nice and really gentle. Id have dumped on the remaining compost after 3 or 4 handfuls. But then I'm a Japanese maple novice, just acquired my first 2 and have yet to pick up the finesse. 🎉 keep updating pls.
Thanks 🙏 using this method I’ve not had any issues, but I would not now repot after the summer solstice, to allow the tree roots time to occupy the compost 👍
I know exactly what you mean, I purchased a tree on line because I could not find this particular tree in my area. It turned up just a twig in a pot , I complained to the supply and was told if it’s still alive there was now recompense. You live and learn..
My maple tree leaf is turning red and shedding leaves. It feels like the tree is dying in July in Michigan. Any tips to revive the tree? Tree has been watered every 3 days. Its not about the water fir sure.
I bought a few trees from this establishment, Esk sunset and Oregon sunset. When i got them home, I pulled them out of the pots and 3/4's of the soil and roots were basically dust. There was just a few roots around the area where the drip system pipe had sat. The trees survived but took two years to start developing correctly.
Fantastic video! All my big acers are from Acers R Us, and they have been absolutely spectacular since the day I bought them. It’s such a lovely friendly place to visit. The trees are always in beautiful condition too even in mid summer. The dangerous thing about this nursery is that it is only a 10 minute drive from where I live 😅
Yeah a new video ❤ I love your special nursery videos, that shop really looks so cool. Never tried ordering online … bit scared here 😂 maybe I should give it a try, we have some Acer nurseries that ship here in Germany but still not sure if they grow them on their own I was also at a normal nursery this week and finally found a tree labeled as mikawa yatsubusa, but it was bluish and had very long internodes 😢 so didn’t look like one at all … so in the end up leaving it there because I was not sure if it may have been mislabeled. I also was shocked that most of the trees they had there were the standard netherland trees you can get in every garden center or tool store … overall very disappointing
If you order online from an Acer specialist it is fine here in the Uk. Shame about the nursery, finding a specialist has been really helpful. Thanks for sharing 👍
You are so lucky to be in Germany, Baumschule Hachmann or Baumschule Nielsen have way much bigger collection and rare Acers than here in the UK. They are like the top specialist of Acers/Japanese maples in Germany.
@@remojones the online shop I mentioned is Nielsen yes. Hachmann I never heard of. Unfortunately both are over 400km away 🥲 thank you for the suggestion ♥️so I should try it and order a tree or two from them. One my wish list are still a mikawa yatsubusa, shishigashira, katsura and summer gold… maybe more but I have to live with that limited balcony space 🤣 I even got the weird idea to open up my own nursery, if the money wouldn’t be the problem 😅
@@SandraOhmayer You should watch Acerdorer's video. He shows a lot of videos of growing maples in balcony and the varieties of Acers you can buy in those german nurseries.
@@remojones I know his videos they are pretty cool. Good for him: he lives next to Hamburg (or even in Hamburg?) so next to cool nurseries, I live next to Frankfurt and there are none because my favorite one closes 5 years ago (He retired 😢) in the UK I would love to visit Herons Bonsai that is your advantage (or not depending on where you live in the UK of course) I visited a lot of regional garden centers and nurseries now… most of them have the same stuff from the Netherlands but more expensive than in the tool stores even with the same label (Acer Jewels) and I have been now to like at 8 different ones … only my blood good was from a German nursery and that was from Hornbach (tool store 😓) the nursery I got my dissectums at like 10 years ago didn’t grow them on there own anymore, so sad they even stopped producing flowers and have everything brought in now
as a bonsai cultivator i know grafts can be very useful. but i always ground or airlayer the stem graft off to have my japanese maples on their own root stock
Hi Carl, the hardest part for me is to distinguish between overwatering and underwatering. For example some of my maples show the same "scorch" on the leaves, uniformely all around the plant, but how can I be sure that the problem is overwatering? I also have a meter, and the top 10cm of the compost is totally dry, but then deeper it is almost saturated. I thought of just sprinkling a bit the top soil to try and have the moisture as uniform as possible, and it seems to be keeping the trees stable, definitely in winter I will repot them to a better, more airy soil with a wiser pot choice to match the root ball size. Till then, any recommendations? Thanks, Kostas
@@kostastheo2043 good points here! If it’s dry leaves all over it’s probably the roots not providing enough water. If the pot is not drying out evenly then the pot is too big / the roots are not developed enough. Definitely water as your doing as the fine roots of maples at the top are important. Over time it then should balance out.
@@kostastheo2043 until winter just keep going as they won’t get much from rain at this time of year. It’s next spring that over potting will be critical and in smaller pots with healthy roots will grow faster!
@@Japanesemaples I watch your videos a since months but was to shy to comment 😂 PS it is your “bad” influence I also bought more in the garden center last month, two butterfly and two going green in one pot for 12,5€ each was a bargain. I also visited a nursery that hat great Jordans and Sommer gold trees but (luckily for my husband) too big for my balcony
I need a primer for giving my young coral bark structure. It wants to be shrubby and was growing in a dense twist in one direction. I dont think it will ever send any branches to the other side without physical force. Do you have any advice for correcting the growthh on this variety? 😎
That’s a great question and honestly I have never trained a tree other than staking up the leader to get height. Each tree does have a very characteristic habit and despite being genetic clones grow differently from one another. Try turning it 180 for a year to see if that helps otherwise if you buy more trees checkout my videos for some that are more shrub like 👍
I have tended to over-pot my new maples, and they really have been soggy and heavy. I've decided to remedy this not by down-potting, but by re-potting into a really well-draining soil: 3 parts pine bark, 1 part perlite, 1 part peat moss. Even when freshly watered they are now so much lighter and the water drains through quite readily. I'm optimistic I'll see some good summer rebound on those that have been sluggish to this point.
Hi and yes using a mix like that is a perfectly valid solution. That type of mixture it’s basically what the Acer growers use and works well. The issue is however is they dry out super fast and will need / waste a lot more water. Most growers use poly tunnels that prevent wind and direct sun reaching the trees so I think there is always a balance. I’ll have a video out soon on compost and watering strategies. Thanks for posting, Carl
It’s featured in my latest video: Japanese Maples: Secrets of selection and care in full sun ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TLoCk04KTY0.html
