purchasing maples in the Winter... yikes

You may be on to something... Mystery Maple #1 looks a lot like a Fireglow. Does anyone know how green aFireglow will actually be without a lot of sun? Right now this tree gets about 2 hours of morning sun and it's about 1/2 green and 1/2 red. THe under side of all the leaves are green (unlike my Bloodgood).

I haven't spent much time with Mystery Maple #2 since I will be digging it up and potting it soon. It may be getting swapped out with my gorgeous Red Dragon.

Now the so called "Burgundy Lace Leaf"... it sure looks like a 'Burgunday Lace Leaf' but in a larger form. For being such a tiny tree it has pretty big leaves. I have seen a much larger Burgundy Lace at a nursery and it's leaves are about 1/3 the size of mine... Any ideas?

Thanks again for eveyone who has helped!

Oh yeah... my wife and I just found out we're having a baby!! She's about 6weeks along. She suprised me Easter morning with her test results in my Easter basket. Talk about an Easter miracle because this 27 year old was told it would be nearly impossible to have kids without medical assistance.

 

Hi Colby:

There are some 5 gallon Japanese Maples around for $20
but most all of them are just seedlings or are named cultivars
that have had their labels lost or are ill kept plants. The hard
thing to impress on people is that so few of these are a bargain
unless we have a specific use for them such as planting them
in landscapes in which the name of the Maple does not really
matter. I can also buy cultivar Maples at $20 which is a
wholesale price to me, $40 or more to you from a retail
standpoint.

Acer palmatum 'Aureum' has been mixed in with green
seedlings for years in California. If we know what to look for
we can snag a facsimile of a named cultivar, even a seedling
thereof as many seedling Aureums will show characteristics
of the Aureum parent, at a bargain price.

Now for your Maples. It is too early to tell if your Burgundy
Lace is right as I see too much green and other colors in the
Maple that makes me think at this time it is not a Burgundy
Lace by virtue of color alone. The shape of the leaves is
close to being right in that it is a deeply divided leaf, used to
be called ribbon leaf in the nursery trade until the early to
mid 80's. The problem with this one is that it needs more
sunlight to color it up better and now we have to wait until
next Spring and perhaps beyond to have a better idea as to
what this Maple is, if it is a named cultivar or not. As you
become more aware of Japanese Maples in time you will
only select a Burgundy Lace in the Spring when it has the
right coloring. If there is too much green, bronzes and
oranges in the Spring leaf color you will learn that initially
the plant becomes real suspect as being a true to form
Burgundy Lace.

We have two forms of Fireglow, sold to us by reputable
nurseries as Fireglow. One is right and the other is the
Italian form of Effigi. Most people in the Western US
have the Effigi. That Maple in its younger years will
give us orange coloration in several of the leaves, even
grown in full sun which has always been problematic
for people here and elsewhere. The books say one thing
about Fireglow, in this case Effigi but the books do not
tell us that the truer Spring colors of this Maple will show
up over time and then develop those same colors year in
and year out for the most part. From 3-10 years old,
sometimes longer the Maple can have a variety of shapes
to the leaves also in that in some years the leaves can be
rather small, some leaves with 5 mostly but irregular
shaped lobes and will have us scratching our heads what's
going on just like the problem shiroi oni is having with his
Maple as the Oregon form of Fireglow that came out of
Canby, Oregon, can do exactly what that Maple has done
in its early years. Mine did!

The Maple you are calling a Fireglow looks like an Oshio
beni to me. Just like Bloodgood there are seedlings of Oshio
beni that, this is for you andre, that for several years one
selected form was called the "no name Maple". Well, the
no name graduated into becoming a well utilized landscape
Maple throughout the San Joaquin Valley starting in the
mid 80's through today. Give your Maple time and I'll
know if it is that seedling or a grafted seedling or not but
as of right now it probably is one of the two.

I want you to invest in the Japanese Maple book if you do
not already have it. Ideally, it is probably better to have
both the 2nd edition and the 3rd edition. The reasons why
is that when we are first starting out learning Maples it is
better to learn these plants in the groups that Mr. Vertrees
laid out for us. The major sections are palmates, deeply
divided, dwarf, dissectums, variegated, linearilobum and
unusual groups. I learned Japanese Maple by those groups.
Yes, with some Maples we will have some overlaps that
they can be a dwarf and an unusual featured leaf such as
Mejishi but we can either place the Maple as either but
what is important is to know that Maple first. The 3rd
edition has newer information on some of the Maples
that were in the 2nd edition but also has a most welcomed
section on several of the newer introductions here in
the US, Europe, Australia and Japan (mid to late 80's to
2000).

I think if you had the 2nd edition and 3rd books then
when you mention Crimson Queen and Tamukeyama
that you would know that those two Maples are dissectums.
Once you equate dissectums as having the same or
very similar leaf structure to the Maple you purchased
as a Red Dragon that you would know that neither
of those two mystery Maples of yours are dissectums.

All of this learning stuff takes time to evolve in our
knowledge but the books are essential reading if we
desire to have a long term relationship with Japanese
Maples. The rest of the knowledge comes from experience
of seeing Maples over long periods of time and from the
growing of them. I realize that a Maple sold to you
should be what you are buying in name but many times
the nurseries that are selling these plants know very
little about the plants they are selling. I've seen
nurserymen that have sold Maples for 30 years that
are, in my mind, novices to Maples. Many nurseries
today have become just a business of moving plants
from their source to you, not service oriented from
dedicated nurserymen and women like they were for
so many years in the past. The smart thing for you to
do is quit worrying about what your Maples are or
are not, spend some time reading through the various
posts in this forum as well as the GardenWeb Maple
forum and get a "feel" for these plants. You will
see in that other Maple forum especially that there
are several people in the same "boat" as you. Go
through the archives in this forum, the best online
informational base online for Japanese Maples and
read the many threads and posts. Get a handle
on the background information as you will see
that we all have had some areas of confusion
with Maples. I was taught that the more we
know about Maples the more confused we get.
If we are not confused then we are simply not
learning Maples!

Congratulations on the very good news.

Jim