I wanted to share a collection of photos showing our Japanese maple garden through the four seasons. Too many photos to upload so here is the link to Flickr: Four seasons, The Japanese Maple Garden Three pages total or just click on the slide show icon to see larger photos that automatically progress. If you have any questions about any of the photos, just reply with a link to the photo in question and I will be happy to answer any of your questions. I hope you enjoy! I find it's a great way to chase away the weather blahs!
Beautiful! Do you prune the tree's to keep them from overgrowing? Also how do you protect the potted Japanese Maples during the winter?
How do you cram these in to blend so nicely? Also what makes you choose which ones are potted and which go into the ground?
We prune everything around the third week in May or about a month after they leaf out (for those who live outside our climate). We use a slow release organic fertilizer with beneficial bacteria and microbes that improve the trees health and the health of the soil (found in the soil of forest but absent from landscape soils). This provides us with dense branching that is slower growing and sustainable standing up to seasonal extremes while avoiding long leggy growth that tends to be unsightly and fail due to pest, disease and or seasonal extremes; which is why we don't use synthetic forms of nitrogen. In addition, synthetic forms of nitrogen depletes sugar levels in your maples and kills the beneficial microbes in your soil. All maples get pruned, but some are allowed to grow tall as designated by our design. These tend to be the upright growing varieties where their canopy adds a nice design aesthetic and most likely provides privacy from neighbors giving our yard a feeling of seclusion despite being in a neighborhood setting. We protect our potted maples over winter a few different ways depending on the situation. Bonsai maples go in the garage into large plastic containers large enough to fit about 5 with walls slightly taller than the pots. We use dry sphagnum (typically sold as a compressed cube) that is broken up into a powder (or uncompressed) and it goes in between all the pots up to the edge of the pot wall. Double ground pine bark mulch is placed on top of the surface roots to about 2" deep. Landscape size maples grown in container stay in place, unless they are on concrete, then several are bunched together. The individuals get a burlap donut around the pot with the pot in the center donut holes. We use oak leaves stuffed into burlap that is threaded close using twine. They are stuffed full of leaves making the burlap tubes full like a snake. The one end of the snake is sewn together and stuffed with more leaves. Then it is wrapped around the outside of the pot making a donut with the open end sewn to the outside. The pot wall should be completely covered by the burlap donut. Sometimes two layered on top of each other when the pot is very tall. The donut should also cover about 1/3 of the outer surface soil. Then two inches of double ground pine bark covers the remaining surface soil to about two inches. Some marginal varieties or new maples brought in from milder climates are covered with Dewitt frost cloth to protect the canopy from extreme cold and wind.
