It is a ton of work to keep them so tight. In spring my pruners are cutting away like a weedeatter. I have a giant puzzle, I spend hours moving trees around to fit them next to each other. Color, leaf type, shape and size determine where they go along with their sun exposure. Right now I have vertually all of the trees I can handle, there might be 5 or 6 places where the irrigation is in place but they are down a step hill which I hope to plant in the next year.
I'm interested to know exactly where you are located. I would be interested in visiting. We have a collection, that was begun about 50 years ago. Many of our trees we grafted. I've only permitted one viewing over the past 7 years, but I'm wondering if you've been here previous to that. KlaHaYa Gardens
I am located 30 miles north of Seattle in Everett, WA. I am a newbie to all of this so I doubt I have visited your place. Visitors are welecome to my place with an appointment time. I have had people as far away as Virginia come to my place. It is always nice to talk with people about the trees, I learn a great amount from other collectors. As for your place, I would love to see it. I got my start in this from a japanese garden in south Everett which was to be developed. They sold off hundreds of japanese maple trees which they had grafted decades ago. I have attached a link to photos of that garden. http://doolang.com/garden/
Do you happen to know if that belonged to the Van Winkles? Looks familiar to me. I am not ready to have visitors at this time. When I am ready, I will have a spring and a fall leave viewing tour limited to 25 individuals by invitation. I will remember you when the time comes. I am fortunate with the beautiful trees I have. Mine is a young garden by Eastern standards; it hasn't even reached toddler age of 100 years, but by Western standards, I have a mature garden and landscaping that is our family legacy. Someday, perhaps, it will be a public garden. Meanwhile, I will keep an eye out for trees we can add to the landscaping. When we had our nursery, we had the largest selection of Japanese maples in the state. I imagine, with availability and new varieties, that is no longer -- not that we operate a nursery anymore. I enjoyed the pictures of your maples. I encourage you to PLANT them. ;) Warmly, KlaHaYa Gardens
The garden I posted was owned by a family with a different name. If you know everett/mill creek area is was by the buffalo farms. My garden has very few trees planted, most of them will end up in someone elses collection. I have a few 40 year old and a 70 y/o weeper but most of my trees are much newer. I am not sure how many different types of japanese maples there are. Someplace over 300, Knowing that is not so important since trees are always coming and going. I would say that maybe 60 of my current count of 800 trees are planted and the rest are in pots. I really can not see having many more different varieties since there are only so many I really like, the rest are just ho hum trees, duplicated or just a little to weird/ugly for my taste. I know Frank Byles down in Olympia has large number of different varieties of japanese maples. I had heard it is over 600 different types.
Yes, I know where the bison used to be. I think it is more important to graft select maples for unique and pleasing characteristics. The number of variety is not the goal. Appreciating the beauty and the uniqueness is.
