Cheering ourselves up with Maples

Lovely to see a Griseum Alain, mine has for some reason failed to leaf out this year. It's still alive, but buds have not swollen. I'm not giving up on it though. July I might !!!
D

 

Hi G, the sun was shining just right for your Beni Otaki. Beautiful colours.
D

 

I know this is a maple forum so I apologise in advance! ..but I get the feeling we all like interesting trees on here so here is a photo of my Hamamelis mollis in February 2019, strangely it decided not to flower this year..despite looking superbly strong, densely covered in leaves and having more than doubled in size compared to the photo below.. any ideas, do these trees regularly fail to flower when growing strongly and seemly being healthy?

 

It doesn't sound so good, it's quite late in the season now. I bought two. One died the second year, I never knew why because the second one is thriving.

That's the problem with some "exotic" species : what soil, climate, etc. is the best for them to adapt to our environment. It is said to be from Gansu, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Sichuan, in China, in mountain forsts (1500-200m). (Acer griseum)

I saw one in Kew Gardens (UK) in the early 20s, in April. It hadn't budded out, but I pocketed a dozen seeds that didn't germinate. There's also a bunch of 3 weak ones in La Rochelle near the harbour but they don't look healthy at all. At least, they didn't 2 years ago, I'm not sure they can be at their best by the Atlantic coast, under the salty winds and temperatures that hardly ever get below zero (32F).

Mine is the best one you can find in a 1-mile/3-km area I think ;°)

 

You cultivated it too well : the more a tree is stressed, the more likely it is to flower. I don't know when you repotted it, but I think the roots are developping comfortably so the tree is building a strong architecture above the soil instead of trying to flower as if reproducing was the priority.

I don't know anything about Hamamelis, but for other flowering deciduous, in that case, I would prune it hard now, add no fertilizer till the end of August, then fertilize it with a low nitr0gen fertilizer in sept./oct. (NPK 3-6-6, 3-6-9, 3-9-12, or the like)

 

Thank you Alain, this is helpful..And makes perfect sense..Interestingly I have not repotted it.

 

A good number of my trees flowered this year and I was wondering why. I repotted early spring (following my bonsai technique). So it make lots of sense now that @AlainK mentioned it and @emery did as well in a previous post about the trees being stressed.

 

Good morning everyone, whilst sitting in my garden very early this morning having my first cup of coffee, the clouds started to roll in, so took these few.
They are changing daily atm, lots of green now. There two of Phoenix as they are from two trees in different positions. Sun and shade.

The last one of today's photos is Red feather, I had to put my hand behind to show the very fine dissected leaves.

D

 

I just had a delivery, only small so will be unnoticed hopefully!!!!?
Its Satsuki Beni.
Lots of protection for next few years will be required.

Fingers crossed it will be a nice little tree.

D

 

A question for the experts in this forum: Does this seedling resemble the “plain” A. palmatum species?

Plus some random pictures from my front yard, my Japanese holly and Digitalis.

 

Lovely pics. Looks similar to little princess to me, see how it looks in the autumn and grows out over the next few years.

 

If we had a dog house I would be in it tonight. Delivery no 2 today. Kasagiyama. 3ltr pot and 3ft tall. Going green already, but I expected that. I said to my wife, "I have just the place for it", her reply as usual, "WHERE". I think she has a point actually, lol.

D

 

Hi dicky5ash, and thanks! Do you have any close up photos of the plain species?

I have some pictures from several years back of Japanese maples in situ in gardens in Kyoto. Unfortunately at the time I was not into maples, so I did not take close ups.

And some Azalea bonsai from the same trip.

 

I don’t have any photos of the plain species I’m afraid, I have been interested in knowing what they look like too..the reason I said your seedling looked similar to little princess was the red margin.
Wonderful photos.. AlainK will like these

 

Amaurobius ferox, black lace weaver.. found lots of these under the decking I am removing..they can give a nasty bite apparently!

 

Hi R, do wear gloves as they can give a nasty quite painful bite. But they do not bite that often. A few years back I had these reported to me in very large numbers.
D

 

Yes I read the same, I have removed half the decking and found 10!! Proceeding with caution, with gloves and trousers tucked in my boots lol..we really are lucky here in the U.K. on this topic!!!

 

@dicky5ash, You would be surprised R. I've sent you a message explaining. Lol

D

 

Hello!

Have you ever bought plants for grief?

A few weeks ago I bought six Japanese maples from a supermarket.

I show four of them:

Palmatum
Dissectum
Seyriu
Katsura

They are a little pruned, because they are going to work like small bushes.

At the moment I have them in coconut fiber waiting to see how the summer feels.

 

@monicasanchez, Hi Monica, I buy maples all the time, as you can see by my postings today. It's my wife that gives me grief for buying them.

D

 

Seiryu is losing green rapidly.
We had a dry day yesterday.


Today is back to a dripping drooping story.

 

Good evening G, what a beautiful tree. Spring to Summer is wonderful to watch IMO. Off to bed here in England, lovely photos to end the day. Thankyou

D

 

D,

I may have gotten myself in a bit of trouble today. My wife likes evergreens and flowering plants and she made some requests for an area that needs filling in. So I went to Sooner Plant Farm's website and ordered a Spartan Juniper and a couple of flowering plants she mentioned. However, I snuck in an Oridono Nishiki and a Grandma Ghost as well. If she gives me a hard time I plan on telling her that the GG is in honor of HER since we recently found out our daughter is pregnant and due in November. Hopefully she won't notice the ON. Fingers crossed.

J

 

Good morning J, I think you will get away with it, Grandma ghost is the perfect ploy for a new to be grandma. You can also say that the pink in Oridono Nishiki is just incase it's a baby girl. !!!!!!?? BTW Baby ghost is very pretty as well lol.
Happy news for both of you, 'Congratulations.'
D

 

I love it. A ghost for every occasion lol.