I have a japenese maple tree. It is about 15 feet tall and in good condition. I've noticed seedlings starting to grow in the grass below. I've taken the seedlings with a good ball of soil and have transplanted them in a better area of our yard partial sunshine. They are about three inchs tall, and have two or three leaves on each seedling. My question is should I have transplanted them in the new area, or should I have tranplanted them into pots first till they got bigger. I live in the New Hampshire and was wondering if they will be able to handle the winter season. As I said they are about three inchs now and it is early May I have seven months till the severe weather arrives hoping to get another couple of inchs out of them. Say they grow to about 9 inchs will they be able to survive. If you could reply to my e-mail address I would appreciate any thoughts. msarnie@lmh.edu thanks in advance.
What you've done with the Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) seedlings would be appropriate in my part of the world (maritime southwestern British Columbia), and I wouldn't give them another thought, except to keep the weeds from smothering them and ensure they don't succumb to drought. But I wonder about frost-heave in your neck of the woods and whether palmatums would actually prefer some shade to being in the full sun (again, I'm not familiar with A. palmatum growth in New Hampshire). The less root disturbance your plants experience, the healthier they'll be. Mulching may help to insulate the roots from cold, but mulches are good habitats for rodents (who love to chew on maple bark) and can easily smother small seedlings.
