I had quite a discovery while off during the 4th of July weekend. I was weeding around my Butterfly Maple and found a seedling Butterfly Maple. I have since transplanted the new found seedling it into a pot for safe keeping. My question is once winter sets in what should I do to keep the small maple alive? I don't have a greenhouse or access to one. Should I bring the seedling into the house and use a plant light to keep it alive or should I re-transplant it again in to a much larger pot and leave it outside until spring? Here are pictures of the parent tree and the seedling that I found. Any and all advise is well appreciated since this is the first time trying to raise a seedling from a Japaneese Maple. Joe
I've sucessfully raised many Japanese maple seedlings and some salvaged vine maple seedlings here on the West Coast. Most of my seedlings were grown for a couple of years in pots smaller than the one you show and then given away to continue growing in someone else's care. I don't know how cold it gets in North Carolina. Could you more the pot with the seedline into your garage for the winter? A garage would be protected from extreme cold but wouldn't expose the tree to warm interior temperatures. Don't forget to water it once in a while during the winter if the tree and pot are under cover. And don't forget to water it during the summer! Good luck.
Joe: I guess you have gone through a winter with your Butterfly Maple seedling by now. Did it make it OK? Several years ago, maybe 5, I planted a batch of maple seeds of several different kinds. I collected the seeds either directly from trees or picked them up off the ground. About 40 came up and I gave most of them away. I have a dozen or so left and they are all doing fine. They were left outside all winter in 1 gal. pots and now most of them are 4 or 5 feet tall. The ones that my friends got were put into the ground. They are doing far better than mine. However, I am now deep into the building stage of the Japanese garden here and they will find new homes in the next couple of weeks. I did get a Butterfly Maple from a local nursery last summer, unfortunately it was totally dead in a week. I believe it may have been due to heavy overwatering prior to purchase. Just picked up a couple more last week, and made sure they weren't too wet! Just now coming out into leaf and they look great.
Hi, and thanks for asking about the yearling butterfly maple. The maple done very well over the winter outside. What I did was dig a hole the same size as the pot the tree was already in, and let it ride out the winter in the ground covered up with leaves to help protect it from any elements that may have been too harsh for the young seedling. I'll try to post some current photos of the maple tomorrow. I got quite a supprise with this little maple this spring when it started leafing out, instead of the pinkish outer edges bordering the green leaf, this little maple has red edges bordering the green. Joe
What you have there in the small pot is a little Japanese maple. It's not a 'Butterfly', which is a clonal cultivar. Even if the seedling looked like the parent it wouldn't be a 'Butterfly'. Where some cultivars have come over a long time to be represented by hundreds of separate clonal introductions then the concept of that particular cultivar may become exploded into a Group or even a botanical var. (as in A. palmatum var. atropurpureum or A. p. var. dissectum) to accommodate the reality that it is no longer a single clone. But 'Butterfly' is not one of those.
Here are the pictures that I took today, the parent tree, and the year old seedling from the parent tree. Ron, if the seedling isn't a butterfly, would you please identify it if you can and tell me what this little Japanese maple may possible be, thanks for your help if you can do so. I also found another seedling today, so now I have two. Joe
Oxford White: Yesterday I ventured down to a nursery in Sidney, and among my purchases were two seedling Japanese maples. They are both very small seedlings, one of which is from a Bloodgood. The leaves just coming out on this seedling are identical in appearance to a much bigger Bloodgood in my garden. As Ron says about your seedlings, I realize that these guys are not the true cultivars. The fellow at the nursery told me that the bloodgood seeds in particular often look for all the world just like the parent tree. But he made it abundantly clear that this was just a seedling, not a clone of the cultivar. I have grown quite a few JM's from seed, and all of them have come up just looking like a basic palmatum. I knew this going in, so was not disappointed. Some have more red than others, it just seems to depend what the parent tree is. At the very least it is great fun to see what happens.
A friend found a coralbark maple with abundant fruits one year and raised multiple red-stemmed seedlings in his nursery. Such occurrences of similar seedlings is partly how some cultivars come to be represented by numerous independent introductions.
What Ron is saying, in case it isn't clear, is that even though your little tree is (we assume) a true seedling of your 'Butterfly,' it is not itself a 'Butterfly' because of the genetic variation that is inevitable with sexual reproduction. The only way to get a true 'Butterfly' would be to vegetatively reproduce your parent plant -- by grafting or rooting a cutting, for instance. Named varieties like this have a unique genetic makeup which does not get passed along to seedlings.
This thread makes it more clear to a beginner (myself) why japanese maple cultivars are most commonly grafted.
kaspian: Rooting a cutting? Sounds good to me. How would one do that, and what is the best time of year?
That is a tough question because this is a tricky matter with woody plants in general, and maples might be harder than most. I've never tried it with trees, though I've had some success with various woody shrubs. Also, there's an argument in the maple community about whether grafted plants are healthier than cutting-grown specimens in general. I've always followed the general procedure described by Christopher Lloyd in his classic THE WELL-TEMPERED GARDEN. Definitely consult some reference book for instructions ... or maybe there's a thread here somewhere on the subject. In general, Lloyd recommends taking your cutting in early summer from new wood (i.e. that year's fresh growth), cutting all the way back to the "heel" where this emerges from the older wood. Remove some of the foliage -- the lowest leaves to keep them from getting buried, and perhaps more to reduce water loss through transpiration, for instance leaves that are still very young and tender. Dip the bottom of the stem in rooting compound like Rootone. Stick it (buried up to about 1-1/2 inches) in a moist but fast-draining medium, like a mix of sand or perlite and peat, and keep it under glass or plastic to maintain the highest possible level of humidity, in a place where the plant(s) will receive bright indirect light or maybe some gentle early morning sun, but not enough to cause extreme heat build-up. (A cold frame on a north wall, away from shade trees, would be good for this, or artificial lighting in a cool, not cold, basement or garage. Or you can just put a plastic bag around the whole deal, cutting and pot together, and close it with a twist-tie.) I'd add that from my own experience, a weak solution of seaweed extract seems to stimulate some reluctant plants to root. You can gently mist the plants, and check for even moisture, but basically leave them alone for a while. One good sign that roots are growing is that the plant puts out new leaves. But still don't mess with anything at this point. Stop misting and let the new leaves grow and toughen up. Lloyd leaves his plants in the cold frame over winter, so they'll have an ordinary if somewhat coddled dormancy. If all goes well, they'll be ready to plant out or to move to pots in spring. I don't have a cold frame so I look for a sheltered spot outdoors for the plant to overwinter.
Good morning kaspian...again!! Thanks for the info. Several years ago I got the maple book by Vertrees and Gregory. Even though I read the book, I managed to forget 99% of it. It is a special talent that I seem to possess. I just took a few minutes to read the section on grafting, and lo and behold, there was information about cuttings right after that. Maybe I never actually read that part - EEEEK! And yes, it does seem that JM's grafted onto palmatum rootstock are stronger than those grown on their own roots. Not only that, but you can evidently use layering to get new plants. Way more options than I ever realized.
