And the winner is... Acer tegmentosum: Acer buergerianum is well on its way too, and among Acer palmatum, 'Little Princess' ('Mapi-no-Machi-Hime') is on the lead. PS: We've had a few days of rather warm weather here after some strong winds ans pouring rain : it was 8°C-18°C on Saturday, and only slightly lower on Sunday and today. I heard about the snow in Eastern USA: crazy weather...
Crazy indeed.We now give storms arriving here individual names in alphabetical order(eg. storm 'Henry')...we seem to whizz thru the alphabet at an alarming rate these days. Well Koto Hime and Katsura are just about there as expected.Many others are about to open now too including Higasa yama,Mikawa Yatsubusa,Shin deshojo,Pheonix,Herbstfeuer and more.The Mumes have had their first flush and even a peach tree is about to blossom.I thought it was going to be a late one this year but that seems to have changed.....even seen some bees around already.A disappointing discovery this year was the total death of two Amagi Shigures I purchased last year.I'm begining to think this plant is even worse than 'Taylor'..I took every step to protect them this winter and hadn't interfered with them in any way since purchase...that's three that've died on me now,not buying again. Ah well at least it feels like spring is truly on it's way..happy gardening y'all :)
Most maples here have either leafed out, or are about to. I took some pictures, but some of them are blurred and it looks like we're going to have another shower, so I'll take more photos tomorrow. Some of last year's seedlings. I didn't have very many seeds, so I didn't label them thinking "Well they won't be like the trues species/cultivar, so we'll see if some germinate"... (probably from) Acer shirasawanum 'Autumn Moon'. I will put them in a bigger pot without disturbing the roots tonight, one of them looks a bit pale: Maybe from an 'Atropurpureum': The dozen Acer truncatum I have have almost all leafed out, but the photos were too bad too be posted. An A. p. 'Butterfly' I bought a couple of weeks ago: I suspected it was mislabelled -that's why I bought it- because the bark of the tree was very light green, almost yellow, whereas my two other ones are more in shades of red, but it was probably because it was kept away from direct sun I guess:
Flowers on: A. p. palmatum: A. p. Seyriu: A.p. 'Crispifolium', or sthg, which I thought was a 'Shishigashira' when I was offered it:
'Jerre schwartz' is very early too, it's now in full leaves: 'Katsura' and 'Orange Dream' are well on their way too: Acer discolor is now in full leaf too: Acer buergerianum is rather early too. These two seedlings are from the same batch of seeds, I suppose the colours are different because of a different soil mix even if the first one was a couple of days earlier to leaf out (I had dozens to repot last year!): I also have a few Acer truncatum from seeds planted last year: PS: it was 22° (71,6° F!!!) this afternoon, at least it was the thermometer in my car displayed. Maybe it was only 20, but everyone's in a tee-shirt...
Wow, you're way ahead of us here, even with the warm weather! Your pictures make me want things to hurry up, even tho it's not such a great idea... Still lots of time for frost. There are no palmatums open although many are close, and only a few maples in leaf over all. Here are a few from today, A. pensylvanicum with A. triflorum, both in flower; A. longipes ssp catalpifolium; and a shot of the freshly mowed (first time!) lawn with A. mandshuricum. cheers, -E
Very surprising: I don't have A. triflorum but my A. griseum, which I think is very similar, is one that is still almost dormant:
It's been like a nice week in june here: checked the thermometer outside (in the shade), morning: 6°C, affternoon 24° C! OK, it's a protected area, so it may have been 2 or 3 degrees below this afternoon, but look how the trees reacted: Acer p. 'O sakazuki', 26/03 and 28/03: Lots of flowers! Others apparently have many flowers: 'Orange Dream': 'Arakawa' 'Koto-no-Ito': Hey! What are those black spots??? Oh no! APHIDS!!!
Ugh. I spent about an hour in two sessions, picking aphids off of an A. oliverianum ssp formosanum. With a toothpick! Then I noticed the buds on a sycamore next to it had lots of little black dots, about 8-10 per bud. I wiped off the low ones, but it's a big tree... I hate aphids. It seems like it's going to be a bad year for them. I wonder if it will be a good year for flowers though. No Japanese Maples out to look at yet, tho a graft of 'Hana matoi' has started. Actually I do have AJ 'Blushing Beauty' in full leaf, but it looks pretty ordinary for now, really a tiny graft. Had to come into town to deal with some stuff, hate leaving the garden when the weather is like this. Not that we had 24! But maybe 17, still very warm. I got almost all of the pots out of the stable and watered, but still a table's worth of seedlings in there, hopefully will be OK until this WE.
Nice photos guys....Agree with you about the aphids.My winter grafts were done mid february.Have had instances of vine weevils mysteriously appearing inside the bags wrapped around the scions which alerted me to the presence of them in my garden.Have since used nematodes to get on top of that problem.However,this year a lot of the grafts on leafing out were smothered in aphids,again inside the bags.I was completely oblivious to the presence of eggs as I've never had this problem before...another thing to look out for.(BTW the life cycle of aphids makes interesting reading,they don't always lay eggs) I found that sycamore was a great host for scale insects.There was a rogue seedling growing outside my garden which was smothered in them and they spread into my garden.Since removal(took 2years to kill) of the sycamore the scale problem has diminished dramatically,back to how it used to be. Hana matoi always worries when leafing out,it always looks like the leaves have wilted from overwatering but plump up later :)
Used the hose to get rid of the aphids. Perhaps a temporary solution, but apart from 'Koto-no-Ito', there are none, or very few on other trees.
Actually I've found a hose works surprisingly well.My Sambucus usually gets so infested that you can't see the stems for the thick coating of aphids.I usually have to hose only twice each year....they haven't arrived on that plant YET!
One that is flowering for the first time (a cheap buy from a supermarket in the UK 3 years ago), 'Ryusen': OK, the photo is not so good, but it's so sunny here, and warm: 24° this afternoon!
Here, it is. I wrote somewhere that I had hundred of seeds on the only A. palm. I have in the ground, but in autumn, after a couple of days with very strong winds, to my dismay, there were no seeds left on the tree! I'll have to check the pots and the "lawn"...
Spring continues to slowly arrive. We had a blast of a couple of really warm days, but the nights have been chilly with frequent frost: including another light one this morning. I think it likely the worst frosts will be next week. Aphids continue to be a real problem, and combined with the frost there is starting to be some tip damage in the delicate JMs. I'm spending some time dealing with aphids, and see now that the ants have begun their farming effort. Interestingly although there are flowers on the maples, it doesn't seem like much of a year for it here. Some like monspessulanum or diabolicum which were packed with flowers last year have hardly any this spring. I'll have to come back and edit for the pictures, the upload doesn't seem to be working properly. (I'll note in passing that the upload manager won't let me select files with the JPG suffix, i.e. not lower case, which is how my camera saves them.) Here are A. crataegifolium, A. rubescens, A. japonicum 'Blushing Beauty', A. elegantum (Alain's gift, doing very nicely), A. mandshuricum. It wouldn't let me upload more, is 5 the limit per post now?
And of course the order was wrong. Here are a few more: A. pseudoplatanus variegated seedling A, pseudoplatanus 'Corstorphinense' Shin Chishio Well I tried to do more, but have to give up. :(
BTW, I never use any kind of color adjustment or over saturation, this is really how they look. But since color balance is automatically adjusted by a digital camera even with no filter selected, I don't know if _any_ digital image really justifies the #nofilter tag! -E
Emery, glad the elegantulum is doing well. I have a potted one from the same batch which is now 1.50 m tall! The ones I got from you are looking good too: Acer campbellii ssp sinense: Acer cappadocicum, and Acer davidii: But I'm a bit worried about the Acer caudatifolium, it seems it got pseudomonas. The top looks very healthy, but it's got black spots on the base of the trunk. I would really be disappointed if it dies, I'll soak the pot in a solution of Bordeaux mix for a couple of hours and see if it can survive: The A. monspessulanum are only beginning to open their leaves, and the A. griseum will be the last one:
Glad to see the ssp sinense is doing well. I really like these a lot, and they're quite difficult to succeed with apparently. As with so many a greenhouse would really help! I don't know if the caudatifolium damage is pseudomonas, straight freezing, or some combination of the two. I have observed that the surfaces most prone to it were exposed to the sun and so presumably the bark is thinned. I had some damage like this last year, but much more this year: here are a couple of pictures of the worst effected plant. I think they're really quite tender and am hoping that as they get bigger (which they seem to want to do very rapidly) they will toughen up. I am treating with lots of copper and as you see am having decent recovery. Back to the mower! cheers, -E
The symptoms are very similar. C'est vraiment dommage, it's a real pity. Let's hope that with proper care they'll make it out. Croisons les doigts, let's keeps our fingers crossed.
This is my first spring with Japanese maples and I'm breathlessly anticipating 10 to leaf out. We had a brutally cold March which slowed things down. I had 2 planted in ground, 2 outside in large containers, and 6 were in containers stored in an unheated garage for the winter. The buds are all getting ready to burst. It was looking like my Butterfly was going to leaf out first but it seemed to take a pause, so the only one with leaves right now is my Seiryu. Peaches and Cream, Sango Kaku, Viridis and Butterfly buds are all starting to open. Here's the Seiryu:
Well, we got absolutely whacked in a hard frost last week. I've never seen so cold with the foliage so advanced, tho frankly frost is not unusual this time of year still. I measured -4C in the sheltered courtyard, so it was probably -6 in places. Hundreds of maples and other trees were badly damaged. Here are a few pictures I took the next day, on 21/4, although I didn't have the heart to take a lot of them... Even very hardy maples like sycamores and pensylvanicums, which usually laugh off frosts, were badly hurt. Some trees were already completely black when I arrived back at the farm the next day. Most of the maples will recover in time, the main risk will be for small trees that were planted this year. Interestingly I have 3 A. shirasawanums in different locations that were essentially undamaged; but all of the japonicums had major injuries and the lovely 'Emmett's Pumpkin' may not recover. More frost tonight and tomorrow but I hope it won't be nearly as cold. -E
Things are early for us this Spring. Still waiting on Acer shirasawanum and Acer griseum. Both should be out this weekend. Having tea on the patio and wanted to share the view. One notable thing about this spring is the abundance of flowers on just about every variety of maple. I hope to feel up to getting my real camera out and photographing them before they are gone. I just don't have it in me so far but here's to a better tomorrow.
