Good Morning Y'all! I've decided it's time to purchase a reference book & would be interested in knowing which one you would recommend if you could choose only one? I love this forum & have gleaned much valuable info from the discussions.....thanx to UBC for hosting it. Ginger
I'd call Mountain Maples (#'s on their site) and ask for recommendations.. they sell a gazillion diff. maples (Japanese too of course) and should have some ideas.
Ginger, I think it depends on whether you are primarily interested in Japanese maples, which it seems that your entries suggest. Vertrees, Japanese Maples (Timber Press 2001), which is the 3rd edition of that title, revised and updated by Peter Gregory, is a wonderful book. Of course, the focus is Acer palmatum and cultivars, but the section in the back is on Acer species, including various details on their cultivars, which are native to Japan. What I would recommend, since I have been reading about maples for over seven years, it seems, and have primarily been using the library to do so, is to check it out of the local library. This will give you time to really know that it is what you want. Apparently Tidewater, Virginia encompasses a number of counties, http://www.virginiaplaces.org/chesbay/11chesa.html, and thus various public library systems, so you are lucky to have choices. If you are interested in maples, in general, then my recommendation would be different, and would depend on your particular area of interest.
These are the relevant titles you can find available for purchase at this time (the one on the left is forthcoming): http://www.timberpress.com/search.cfm?query=maples&search=book
The books listed are all somewhat different, with le Hardy de Beaulieu's book being mainly about all maples except for japanese maples, specifically not acer palmatum. Van Gelderen's Maples for Gardens has pictures of all the many cultivars they discuss, whereas Vertrees's Japanese Maples has very good descriptions - it depends on what you need, and how you gather information. Van Gelderen's Maples of the World is a thick tome, and very complete, but only example pictures. I find that none of them is sufficiently specific about various aspects of growing maples, though, and problems one encounters, as we find out all the time on this forum.
