I'm very heartbroken right now as my japanese maple was felled by accident. I'm here because I would like any advice/tips in producing a seedling? (we will try regardless anyway :( , even if there is no hope) . I have no experience in grafting. We went and got some advice from a local nursery, and so far are trying the following: 1. We have tried grafting some very tiny branches to the remaining stump, by tying it tightly with tape and covering it with candle wax (sealed the graft area and top of the stump). 2. I've dug up some "wild" growing maples (told they were vine maples?) on our property and potted them. I will try to "attach" some stems into these wild variety probably tommorrow when I have time. 3. We will also try rooting hormone on small pieces of stem. I was given #3. Here is a little about my maple. It was VERY tall (almost as tall as the house which is an old 2 storey, so maybe around or just over 20ft?). It was on the property before we bought it and is probably 20+ years old. The branches were spread out, not a compact maple. This guy did not stay a constant red, it's colour changing is what made him so special to us. ie. I've seen it go from dark red to green to yellow to gold and finally to an unnatural blazing red in the fall. I'm not sure what kind of maple it was exactly. Thanks in advance for any advice.
The stump would probably sprout anyway. Vine Maple is an attractive plant to grow in addition, but I wouldn't bother trying to graft that onto the stump, just plant some seedlings on their own roots.
An expensive accident....if it was a contractor & their error, make a claim against them. You wouldn't tolerate broken windows or a hole in the roof, you shouldn't tolerate the wrong tree being cut down. Simon
It was accidently done by a friend who thought he was doing us a favour by "cleaning" up our yard for us, so we can't really do much. We yelled, but he couldn't hear us over the noise of the chainsaw and before we could blink, the deed was done. Several cotton wood trees had fallen due to the wind storms, so the area was just a bit messy. We keep a lot of large full grown trees on our place and except for our lawn, it's pretty much "natural". I wish people like him would understand we keep it like that on purpose and it's not that we are lazy. It seems to me a lot of people just rush in wanting to clearcut every single thing that's not "exotic" pretending they know so much even though they know VERY little :/ (seems very ugly and boring to me! we have so much interesting wildlife the way we have it now). So back on topic... Would the stump sprout? It's actually in a "V" shape as there were 2 main branches. Each main branch was probably 10cm in diameter (slender guy) and there is only maybe 10-15cm of stump left off the ground. we covered the top with candle wax because we were afraid it might rot or dry out too much from the top and die. We grafted 3 tiny branches onto each stump and tied it tightly with tape and sealed the upper graft portion with wax. However, I don't think we did a good job because the skin kept chipping and it was hard to make the branch stay (I hope there is enough contact). I don't have any seedlings of this guy. I've been trying for years to sprout it's seeds, but it has never worked :( . I will try the grafting branches to the vine maples I've dug up and trying rooting hormone on other small branches today, but I wonder if they are dead now? I was too tired last night because of the mad vine digging and work, so I've left them in water outside.
Oh, would it help to "shelter" the stump with say a tomato cage and plastic? Michael F, I reread your post and I think I was not clear. I am not grafting vine maple to the stump. I grafted small bits of the original branches to the stump (about a couple inches long each, very thin). I then dug up vine maples to use as a base to graft the fallen japanese maple's branches onto, but I haven't done it yet. I find vine maples all over the place on our property growing wild. They are just abundant, seem to grow easily and were the only other "maple" I have that I could use as a base. I do have a question about this grafting though. Will it help to put a little rooting hormone where the graft is (where the vine maple and japanese maple meet), or is that a bad thing to do? I am just trying a bunch of things in hopes I will end up with one like the felled one. I don't care about the size, I'll wait, it will grow! :) My mother is also very upset over the whole matter and she says she's never seen one change to that sort of red in her lifetime, and she's an avid nature lover & hiker.
Sirus, sorry to hear about your situation. What a tragedy. Here's a link that has been posted here recently (sorry, forget by whom) on grafting: http://webpages.charter.net/wbshell/garden/graftmaple.htm I've not heard of grafting palmatum on circinatum stock but they're in the same section so it might work. I don't think you're likely to have much luck rooting, it appears very tricky indeed. Grafting is no so easy either I guess (don't do it yet myself) but how about this for an idea: find a local or even not so local business that does propagation, and send them a bunch of wood to graft for you? Might not be too costly... There is a sticky thread here about sprouting seeds, you might want to have a look if you've got any seed hanging about; but bear in mind that the children might not resemble the parent all that much, anyway. I don't know how likely it is the stump will sprout, but assuming it will I'd probably steer clear of interference with things like wax. Good luck, -E
Thank you so much for the link emery, it's very detailed and will be very helpful! So now I have another question. I found some pictures I took from last summer (or maybe late spring?) when testing out the new camera. Can anyone identify this maple? Perhaps it's an accident japanese maple :S , but if not and I can possibly buy a small one somewhere in case my project doesn't pan out... that might be yet another option. The large tree on the left is a douglas fir (picture 3), and the japanese maple is to the right of it and behind the pinky/red flowers of the large rhodoendron (the pictures do not do it justice). The area is so empty now :( . It has a greeny-golden? sort of colour during the summer, and you can sort see it in the pictures. In fall it will change to a really yellow/orange (mostly orange actually) and finally to a blazing bright red. Unfortunately I never took pictures in the fall, so this is just what I remember :/ . I always put off taking fall pictures, because I never imagined this would happen. I'm also sure it comes out a darker sort of red in the spring. Oh, and we have never once pruned this japanese maple since we've had it, which is I guess a bit over 15 years. So that shape/growth is natural?
Sirus, perhaps it is Osakazuki or a similar plant. Hard to tell from the pictures and I'm unsure of the form of your tree. But that is the A. palmatum cultivar with perhaps the most brilliant red fall colour, and it can have reddish hues when first leafing out in spring. In any case this is a rather common maple (because of its excellence) and should be easy to find. -E
Thank you so much for your help emery, it's been very helpful! I googled up Osakazuki and it seems similar, I will check out the local nurseries in the fall to see the colours & names of available ones, and keep this name in mind. However I swear I've never observed my felled maple flower in the spring? Do all japanese maples flower, and I've just not noticed it? My mom has never observed flowers on it either. I've measured the tree roughly by walking, and it was about 25ft, it just made me more depressed :p . Hopefully one of my cuttings or grafts takes, or hopefully I can find one similar locally for a reasonable price (we will just have to wait a while for it to grow ^_-). On another note, I just came back from Home Depot with more starter mix soil, and saw they were selling a "green japanese maple" for ~$26? (or was it $36? :S). In any case, it was obviously a reasonable price, since it was quite tall, however it had no specific name! There were also "red japanese maples", much MUCH smaller for ~$100 also without specific names (not even any tags!) The combination of price and no-name for the red maple makes me a little scared, lol.
There are some nurseries that deal in Japanese maples more than others, and you might want to find out which those are, and show them a branch, a picture, describe it to them, whatever. I'm not a big maple person so don't really know which nurseries are the best prospects, except I know Fraser's Thimble Farm on Saltspring Island has quite a listing. Their catalogue is on-line but no pictures, but maybe one of the descriptions will ring a bell for you. Google might find you pictures of the more likely-sounding ones. If you name your location a little more precisely maybe the forum members will know of the best places near you. There are also books on Japanese maples (library or bookstores, or UBC Botanical Garden shop), and you might flip through a couple to see if you find a picture of it.
Saltspring Island is a little far for me as I usually frequent the plant shops near the Surrey/Langley border :) . I usually like (forgot name! :S), but it seemed to have few trees from what I remember. So I will probably try Cedar Rim and Arts in the fall. So far I'm just googling up sites with pictures of japanese maples and looking through the ubc botanical japanese maple pictures. I'm also contemplating using online order sites for tiny seedlings :S . I might just end up with a variety of japanese maples! (as long as they are affordable :) )
if you need your appendix taken out would you ask a friend to do it?, i think not.....so why is it everyones an expert in the field of all things green eh? erm....well that's not at all helpful......*runs away*
lol, I know! A lot of people act like an expert with plants and trees when they talk to me. I guess it's because I *look* young, they are older and that automatically means they know more. I don't claim to know much, but I know enough to appreciate and not cut things down if I can't at least identify them (especially if there is only 1!) :/ . This guy saw we had fallen trees and wanted it as firewood. He was supposed to ONLY take the fallen trees, so he brought a chainsaw I thought to cut them smaller. However he took it upon himself to "clean" up our "messy" garden *sigh*. Before we could open our mouths, he had already started the saw up and jumped up there to cut it! He couldn't hear us yell :/ . He later claimed that it was too close to the douglas fir and looked bad. It would definately *KILL* the fir! Funny... it's been ok and and everything has been thriving there for ~30 yrs... ARGH! =_=
You can always mailorder... and that is indeed a sad story. It is dangerous to mess with a guy who has a chainsaw and knows where you live, unfortunately, but otherwise visions of retribution and lawsuits do dance in one's head, don't they? At least you let him know that he 'done you wrong.'
