I bought this JM labeled "Japanese maple" from Home Depot in a 5 gallon pot. Got it for $10.99. I thought that it was a Bloodgood or some other common stock plant, but this spring, these new leaves emerged. What should I do? It appears the green leaves with red outline is actually a cultivar and the red, purple leaves are from the stock plant. Is that an accurate assessment? What advice can you give me? Should I prune off the red, purple cultivar or just wait? Thanks in advance, Tony
I like the green leaves with red on the fringe because it looks a little more "exotic" than your "run-of-the-mill" red JM. But the graft and the host look pretty healthy!
I would just wait to see how the plant 'grabs you' It was cheap enough not to have to worry about, and you might even decide to keep both ... think of the talking point that would be ... a Japanese maple with different coloured leaves :) The deep purple with the red veins (if your colours are true to life) is a very pretty plant on its own, and would be probably more unusual than the other one
I get leaves like that all time, it will be all green in a week. So who's going to Japan? Oh sorry I am not in the Maple Society Forum, some of them are going on a retreat there, Japan is a very tough place to go if you don't speak Japanese and you can't even think you are going to know what is on the menu, I hope they ship a few cases of Twinkies ahead of time so they don't starve.
While your pictures do not show the stems well enough to see the graft, there is little doubt that the red leafed plant is the grafted variety, the green leaf with the red edge is the understock. The red edge will disappear soon and you will have just a green leaf. After growing thousands of grafted maples, I can give you a 99.999% assurance that what is happening is as I suggest. Cut of the green part or in time it may take of the red cultivar.
I would be inclined to agree with greergardens that the purple leaf is the graft .... it is certainly more appealing to me and I can't see such a nice plant being used as an understock for the rather more basic green and pink However .. the plant was 'cheap as chips' and I would still wait a while to evaluate my own preference as I suggested before THEN ... you can cut off the green when you find you prefer the other one :)
I think we may often forget the beautiful in a regular green Japanese Maple or Acer palmatum. The fact that it is used as an under stock is a testament to it's straight and vitality. My plane green tree is at the top of my list as one of the best. It is always putting out new leaves which are only 35 mm wide and 45 mm in length, margined in a light pink changing to a light gradient chartreuse deepening in color toward the mid rib. It also has very nice smooth dark green bark that holds it color in summer as well as winter. I would snap a photo of it but is just a green Japanese Maple.
Thanks for all your helpful advice (and here I thought the stock plant was actually the unique of the two). I'm attaching a better photo of the stem for your review also. Yes, sometimes HD does come through with bargains if you look. I snapped this one up at the end of November -- I thought, "a five gallon Japanese maple, possibly Bloodgood, for less than $15.00...where's the downside?" So I am very pleased with it and my shopping skills!
Prune off the green branches flush with the trunk (but without damaging the collar), do not cover the cuts with anything. Gomero
I would short prune the two suckers and then cut them off in January, or just before the buds start to swell our second best is to cut them off in August allowing the tree to heal some before winter. The sucker are very close to the ground and this will allow soil born pathogens to enter the wound when the rain splashes up from the soil. That is why late winter is best, as the soil is too cold for pathogenic fungi our bacteria to be active. I would cut up from the bottom with a hack saw and then cut down to met your mark, or mark your cut with a felt tip pen and cut up and then down. This is so you don't rip or pull the bark off to where it is below the soil line. It that happens you will need to remove soil until it the cut is above the soil line and then clean the wound with hydrogen peroxide, then cover the soil with lots of washed sand, or not but this is to keep the area clean until it heals. I use to play doctor a lot, so now I have grown up and of course with all my experence I feel I should be a surgeon,( they make 10X the money, you know) however that has really put a damper things, all my nurses think I am weird when I pull out my bonsai tools. Go figure, I don't understand it, times are a changing. To tell the truth, by ya self a tree and throw that thing in the trash where it belongs, its too much work. Take a look at Greer Gardens web site and pick out a tree or better yet buy locally grown trees with a one year guarantee.
Ha, I got nothing but time on my hands and years to enjoy this tree! But thanks for the advice regarding the two below-the-graft limbs. Tony
A local grower used to graft green and red A. p. dissectums on the same rootstalk, some people liked them.
Richard, I like your style. ;) I gave a tour of about 1/2 my maples this weekend to some not very interested guests. I suspect very strongly they mostly think I'm boring and obsessed. :) Here's a couple of pics of my palmatum ssp palmatum leafing out this year. It's a short-lived spectacle but pretty, now just green leaves... -E
