I just saw this Mikawa being sold privately - *it was dark with just yard lighting* I passed on buying it Price was right but something was off.... Same local - only 6 miles away was the seller selling this All my MY is full on foliage, lush, green, etc. (OG Mikawa Y, Mayday, Japanese Princess and Mystic) I asked why it looked so sparse and he stated late frost.... I don't have a single plant that I can really due to late frost.....and I suppose our weather pattern should be fairly same: similar. Probably would have been helpful if I saw this in the sun but something just did not feel right about this plant.. Does this look healthy to you. From a glance, you would think its early flush but it's as if it has lost or losing leaves - look lke it's a early spring flush out but it's not on this plant However, all my Mikawas is flushed out, super dense foliage, to the point where you can't see any stems. Last 2 pics is my Yatsubusa and Japanese Princess. I can see how the bloom time might be different but we're literally neighbors...25 minute drive but same *local weather pattern* I cannot see the stems on ANY of my Mikwawa's as its just foliage dense Hence, I passed on it as something just didn't feel right when using my current crop as a baseline
Hi @mobiledynamics it looks ok to me, it probably needs a re pot with fresh soil mix and a root prune, hence why it's up for sale now as the owner probably does not want to go through doing that before selling and it's not the right time to do re pot now. Or he / she doesn't realise.... It is always a risk buying a maple, but sometimes if the price is right and you are prepared to accept the risk it can turn out well.
Grower seemed like a container JM grower. He had quite a few... As a wild guess (it was dark) but pot was about 20G and yes, probably pot bound....you can see the width of the tree being limited by the pot volume. I'm not a heavy pot grower but it was clear the tree was limited in width due to it's *drip* line. Granted it was fairly dim/dark and I was limited on seeing it fully clearly, I just couldn't get past why it was sparse in foliage. The pics of my foliage of the OG Mikawa was taken just 2 weeks ago and the Japanese Princess was taken at least a month to maybe 45 days days ago.
Apart from the gauntness leaves not green enough for time of year when keys would be that far along. With plants in general a specimen can look pretty green and still be quite nitrogen deficient. So, when a normally medium to dark green mature foliage is pale or yellowish that means there is a severe deficiency.
