Hi All, I am not new to gardening, But new to to Japanese Maples. I just recieved 2 new JMs, a 1' Germains Gyration & a 2'+ Tamukeyama. My ? is regarding sunlight, The spot where I would like to plant both trees gets nice filtered sun most of the day, Around 3:00pm the spot starts getting Full sun, although it is full sun, it is actually moving Away(setting), I should also mention here that I live in Western NY, South of Buffalo, So this is not Scortching Arizona sun, Is this OK for these fine leaf trees ? To me it seems like a perfect spot with a good mix of sun & shade, The reason Im questioning this is because all Ive heard says AM sun, PM shade, Not the other way around, Like I have. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Jim
shoeboy, I hope you get a reply from somebody more knowledgeable than me, but I just want to say I'm in a similar situation at a similar latitude -- on the coast of Maine -- and I've got four Japanese maples planted in spots where they get a good deal of afternoon sun. They're all tolerating it (with very frequent watering) but there is a lot of variability from one variety to the next. So I guess it's hard to give a blanket answer to a question like this. For the record, these two varieties seem totally unfazed by the PM sunlight: Acer shirasawanum 'Moonrise' (a seedling of the more famous and finicky 'Aureum') and A. palmatum 'Ariadne,' a reticulated type from Belgium. These two are showing varying degrees of stress as they adjust to their new environment: Acer japanicum 'Aconitifolium' is basically doing okay but conveys a general impression of struggling that is hard to precisely articulate; A. palmatum 'Katsura,' which doesn't get much direct sun until late afternoon, is showing some brown, crinkled leaf edges -- but these are on leaves that had already opened when I received the plant. Leaves that have opened since planting are looking okay. I think we can get away with things like this in the north, and in fact I'm hopeful that the extra sunlight will somewhat compensate for our shorter growing season.
