Here is my little Tamahime this year. I wanted to post to show how much culture has a lot to do with the subtle appearance of plants. This couldn't be truer than with Japanese maples. Last year the tree got no direct sun. This past summer and winter the tree got more sun and more direct light. In both set of pics I took them in open shade so that lighting wasn't a factor in color. However, the first set was taken with a different digital camera. That being said the colors are very accurate in both cases. In my previous pictures you can see that the leaves come out much lighter in green and the edges are pinker. This year the leaves have come out darker and the edges are redder. In the first photo at the top you can see one atypically formed leaf. In the second photo you can see how Japanese maples can rival flowers in spring interest! Also, in addition to a difference in color there is a difference in growth habit. When this tree was grown in full shade it's growth was lankier (for a Tamahime) as it reached for more light. This spring I am seeing more typical compact growth. Because of culture...mainly a difference in sunlight exposure, the two sets of pictures seem like two different trees, but they are one and the same. Layne
Took some pix of a seriously terrific rockpile on a beach a couple of yrs ago on a non-sunny day - huge diversity, etc. and gave them to the local supermkt to develop. They came back absolutely terrific, so clear, such detail, etc. Then I asked for some to be blown up larger, and they came back awful - they'd sent them to a different lab (diff. paper, chemicals?). So I had them go back to the first place, and they turned out great again! Yours are interesting because I had to look twice at the first set to be sure they were maples and not something else!
This is the one I got from a friend. Feb. 2019 : I repotted it in a shallow pot. March 2019 : I should have slip-potted it this spring in a deeper slightly larger pot but I didn't have the right one at hand. March 2020 : June 2020, after turning the pot, this was the back side : I have a bigger pot available now, I might slip-pot in in the next few days.
Even better in full light, though I couldn't catch the real colours : EDIT: went out to try close-ups. Still not exactly the same colours (the greens are shinier and the red margins redder), but not so far...
