Cheering ourselves up with Maples

Good morning everyone, this morning I was looking at paintings of one of my favourite artists Claude Monet and thought I would take some photos of my maples to share that are of the more pastel colours.
It's 12° atm and raining so hardly Summer weather that a lot of Monet paintings epitomize. But I've tried to capture some for the thread that I think are relaxing to look at. Hope you agree.

D

 

Beautiful photos D. So funny that other countries are also having rain then clearing then rain again. That has really been the case here in Idaho. It seems that it really refreshes the maples though. I also have a very small Satsuki Beni. It seems very sturdy and is in the ground in quite a bit of sun. We will see how it likes that I guess. The overstory trees around it are not that big yet. Some photos post rain of my Mirte, Pung kil, and Esk Sunset.

 

@Cjart, good afternoon C, this weather is so strange everywhere these days. But we have to learn to live with it. Thanks for the kind comments about my photos.
My wife and I have just enjoyed yours and especially Esk Sunset, it is our favourite pseudoplatanus without a doubt.
Mirte is looking full of vigure, it must enjoy the position a lot. Is it me or does the name not do the tree justice!!!!
Your Pung kil is glowing, certainly has brightened our dull, wet and grey English afternoon. Thankyou C.
D

 

When you think about “Mirte” it doesn’t suggest tree to me but I think it was named for someone’s daughter or granddaughter? My first one I purchased years ago flowered in September after I planted it in the ground. Advice I received in this forum said it would have a hard time making it through that winter and that I should wrap it up to protect it. I didn’t do that because I was fairly new to maples, And of course it died. I liked it so much that I tried again and am glad I did. It is kind of in the background of my “grove”, but I think as time goes on it will dominate and I will need to prune the trees around and limb it up to clear the fence. It is one that I find very sturdy and trouble free.

 

Still trying to figure out what the plain palmatum looks like.. If anyone has photos of the leaves of the most common natural variety growing in Japan, I would love to see them. I had some seedlings last year that perhaps looked like a “typo” version, but I am still not sure what that really looks like..the two tall ones upfront.

The rest of the photos are for AlainK. Not maples, sorry,sorry, sorry..... Still cheery though...

 

Here you are @Nik, plain Acer palmatum. If those are new seedling from a palmatum you might want to wait a few years before comparing them to anything else. Ive never heard the term "typo" version before. I hope these pics help.

 

@Nik , good evening Nik, as you say very cheerful and beautiful.

D

 

Thank you LoverOfMaples, this helps! Yes, the “typo” term is for other plants... I just don’t know the proper term for maples.. I am an amateur.
I realize that there is a lot of variability in the natural A. palmatum population, but there must be a “most common form”, which is what I am very interested in acquiring.
I don’t believe that any seedlings from selected varieties will come close to that.

 

No prob @Nik. Glad I was able to help and thank you for teaching me something new today.

 

Hi D, this one will be around long after so many new varieties have long disappeared. And tbh looking at your photos you can see why. My wife and I friends went to Kyoto last year and they said there were no fancy maples, just beautiful colours from the basic palmatum greens.
Perhaps a lesson to be learnt!!!! Thanks @Nik & @LoverOfMaples.
D

 

Hi LoverOfMaples, I guess the proper scientific term is “wild type”. I try to use as much natural plants that I find in my yard as possible. And I believe in the concept of “natural look” for a garden. I have been accused by my spouse of being lazy because of that... yet I love gardening. But I never call the area around the house a “garden”. I always call it the “yard “ and try to keep it as natural as possible. Still takes a lot of effort.

 

Thank you, it's pretty exciting.

Hmmm, Baby Ghost. That's an interesting idea too.

 

Good morning everyone, just a few today as it is windy again, so photos a little harder to take. These ones I took a few minutes ago after the discussions last night about the plain acer palmatum. I've also added Butterfly as it's just starting to look nice in my garden. And if you don't mind, my wife's favourite plant, our 'Zantedeschia aethiopica '.

D

 

Hehe, I have the exact same problem. I've always done battle with the seedlings in my garden assuming they were from my neighbors big horse chestnut tree...every weekend i'm out in the garden hunting for these "weeds" and tossing them out. Now I've released a lot of them could me from my acers O_O #guilty :)

 

yellow and red slowly emerging on Aureum

 

Good evening G, that's a beautiful Aureum.

D

 

Thunderstorms today left everything dripping. Took some Tsuma Gaki, Autumn Moon (lots of flies on it tonite), Ariadne, Generic A.P., Viridis and Garnet shots.

 

Good morning J, it looks like the rain and thunder storms are everywhere. Lovely photos of the drips from your leaves. The dissectum's are very photogenic after rain aren't they !!

D

 

After M @Sumo stated yesterday about reds, I thought I would go round my garden and take photos of some of mine that stay red throughout the Summer.
We all get drawn to maples IMO because of the lovely colours initially and especially the 'reds'. So here are the ones in my garden that keep their colour the best. I have not added my ghosts or reticulated in this post.
In my garden Skeeters broom stays the brightest red, I know that @zfrittz likes this one.
I do have more, but 20 is the limit to add photos and I think that these are enough for this posting today.
D

 

Here are another 4 reds that I could not add to the last post due to the numbers. They are , Bloodgood, Iijima sunago, Red Dragon and Hana Matoi.

D

 

Thanks D, but gosh you're making me feel SO jealous of your collection! :P

Do you have any panoramic shots of your garden showing all your trees together? It must look amazing in a rich sea of different colours! :)~~

I've added Skeeters Broom to the top of my wish list now - I had previously only read about about it online, so it's very helpful to get some first hand feedback on how it retains the reds through the summer. Thanks!

As a newbie with a mere 5 acers now, may I ask how you managed to get such an impressive collection? Was it simply case of buying different varieties from garden centres over the years?

 

My only good size red is Rhode Island Red, here in its dark summer foliage.
I am very excited about my griseum hybrid seedling, which seems to be maintaining its yellowish/chartreuse color for the summer. I hope it survives..

 

Seeing the above photos of reds I thought I’d nip out and take a couple..soon as I got out there it started hammering down with rain, despite blue sky one side!
The penultimate photo is a new addition Black Lace..it was a tiny bit crispy when I bought it! And lastly a new Trompenburg.

 

Hi Nik,

It's a very nice seedling, but I'm sceptical about it being a hybrid of griseum. I can't get through all the post in this thread, but did anyone tell you this, or supported this idea ? I mean, perhaps it is, but I thought that maples from different series rarely hybridize.

 

Hi AlainK,

Nobody told me that, it is just my strong belief. I found it last year next to the building I work in, under A. griseum. Every year there are numerous typical griseum seedlings under that tree and several others in the area, all of them with 3 lobed leaves, becoming dark green for the summer. This one was different. The buds in spring develop like a griseum. The leaves are “furry”, and appear later than all other maples. It could be just a griseum mutant..
The only other maples around where I found it were platanoides and one truncatum. I know there is a known hybrid with pseudoplatanus. The leaves are much finer texture than the griseum and somehow remind me of platanoides. I will try to find a photo from its first year and post it.