Reading the post on the Bloodgood I wondered if there are many red cultivars that stay red throughout the growing season in shade. By shade I mean no direct sun at all, like under a canopy of high trees. In my case I can mention Enkan, do you have other ones? Gomero
Am I setting myself up for grief again or just stating the facts, Jack? Which color Enkan do you have as I suspect you have the black-red colored form that may be different in color than the form we see. Look at the Enkan in the Ganshukutei web site and the ones in the Esveld site to see what I mean. Two black-reds that can handle filtered shade without any direct sun and stay red are Red Filigree Lace and Shojo. Two purple-reds that will green out if either gets any direct sunlight are Tokiwa beni, the Matsubara form silver and white horizontal striped snake bark and Tokonatsu uchiwa nagashi, the pink and white vertical striped snake bark, cork bark Maple. Both are only seen in very select collections any more. Two other reds that can handle filtered shade and stay red are the red form of Seiryu and Red Spyder, the red form of Koto no ito. Which came first the "y" or the "i" as in Red Spider, the y did. Oddly enough, the red on purple red variegate Fujinami nishiki can also handle filtered shade and keep the color and variegation. There is an orange-red on black-red variegate that will also keep its color and variegation in filtered shade. Jim
Whether or not we are speaking about the same maple, the Ekan sold here a recent introduction to more available trade does not seem to hold its color in sun or shade. Is is definately a black red that bronzes in early summer and then turns green, still with some bronzing, and in the shade we get the red-black that is soon infused with green and then dark green with some purple ovetones, but not what we call purple. I think that many of the purple-reds and those that sometimes appear purple-black will hold some color in the shade, but they will have some medium to heavy green undertones. I am just starting to notice this year that some plants green in response to sun and others in the absence, when we generally blanket the topic by saying that sun helps us hold color. In any case, there are some that are better than others, but in any case it is a gradient effect. But to directly answer the question, I have not run into a plant yet in our climate that will hold its purple or red all season without some significant effect from sun or lack of it. Jim mentions Red filigree lace and in that vein, Beni kumo-no-su comes to mind. I would say it is more purple-red than black and it rarely shows good red tones, but purple. It can become somewhat infused with green, but i grow it in partial shade and the green can be kept in check to some degree, but the purple is not striking.
My moonfire has never gone green in the shade, but that and my red filigree lace are the only ones. The red dragons I have turn a little bit in full shade.
I am not sure what the original intent of this thread was but the implications of a few things does shed some light on growing factors that can help some people in varying landscape settings. The first time I went up to Roseburg, I wanted to see J.D.'s Beni komachi. From the photo of it in the book I saw how he mixed that Maple in a setting whereby the Maple would be shaded much of the time by a large Conifer. Almost gives the impression that we can force the Maple to duck under the Conifer for shade when it needs it and peer its head out for sun when need be. I know Don Kleim had Mama and Wou nishiki at the front and back of his densely shaded koi pond area, so dense that there was perhaps two hours of filtered shade that these Maples got and they did okay there. They would grow better if they had more light but the point was they adapted and remained alive. This opens up a whole new door for us as with the right setting we can use some of our Maples as companion plantings in a landscape under the canopy of larger trees and still see some color to these Maples. Yes, Moonfire grown in a saran house with 50% shade cloth can still retain its color but is not as vibrant in filtered shade as it will be in filtered sun. I've used Moonfire in a filtered sun landscape setting just to prevent sunburn as this Maple scorches real easy for us here but typical of most of the palmate atropurpureum forms this Maple does not like hot winds. Hot winds and direct hot sun and this Maple will fry on us here, much more so than Nigrum and atropurpureum Novum in comparison. Another thing is that Moonfire does not like residual salts in the ground in which we also can get what we perceive as being a scorch of the outer portions of the lobes when in fact this is salt burn. It is the salt burn that has made the old "true" and seldom seen around here any more ribbonleaf forms real tough for us to grow. As a side note: I was delighted to see that Mr. Yano in his Ganshukutei site has some of the ribbonleafs which tells me they are still around but for us it is a mistake to ever plant them here. We have to grow the ribbonleafs as container plants if we want to keep them alive. I'll give an example of what we went through with just one of them. Contorta is a true ribbonleaf, not a deeply divided Maple as the ribbonleafs are much closer to being a linearilobum but with the lobes having a noticeable twisting, curving nature to them. The lobes are not straight by any means. Another thing that separates them is the exceptionally short in length petioles that the true ribbonleafs have. I have to qualify the word true as Koshimino and as well as the newer Hagoromo forms that have been recently named also have the short petioles but they are not to be considered ribbonleafs. Contorta was laden with Tight Bark but what hurt us more was the salt burn this Maple would get. The outer lobes of the leaves would fry with the inner lobes still remaining green but what did not help us any is the leaves once they showed this burning would not soon drop off the tree. They stayed on the tree and thus no new growth would come from it. Not like my Fireglow that fries and what seems like a week later I have new leaves. Then after successive burns we would see twig dieback due to the Tight Bark with no new growth to appear and this cycle goes over and over until the plant dies out due to attrition of not being able to generate enough new growth to replace the old growth that has died out. We generally only saw our new growth in the Spring but as the years go by the plant just does not compensate for the loss of the yearly growth and is the primary reason we no longer see this Maple available for sale as it came and went back in the 70's as there are only a handful of plants left of it that I know of. We keep this one alive by placing it in filtered shade and grow it on in a container, although our old plant of it is still alive in the ground but it is protected year round as it is growing underneath the canopy of some Coastal Redwoods. The point of all of this is that we can make these Maples adapt to conditions that have more shade than sun and still see them live for us. Some forms of Maples will require lots of light for us to see their best colors year after year and some Maples have a transition in time to adapt to our growing and light conditions as it took about 13 years of being in the ground for my Effigi to fully adapt and now I do not see the leaves burn as soon as the temperatures get into the mid 90's. I now see this Maple even handle the 100's pretty well as long as it has some late afternoon wind protection. Also, Effigi can retain much of its color grown in filtered shade. I have it planted in between two Soquel Redwoods and it seems to hold its color well. Jim
I have been observing an Acer Palmatum seedling from seed collected from an unknown red palmatum (most likely Bloodgood) in Stanley Park in western Ma. This tree has been planted out in my garden for about 12 years, 10 in a total shade exposure and has held its red color all spring, summer and fall. About 2 years ago a township utility project cleared some of the smaller underbrush and trees from my neighbor’s property and that has provided a small amount of dappled sun to get to the tree. We have had a maple enthusiast meeting at my gardens for the last few years and this tree is always one that draws everyone’s attention. I have about 20 different red cultivars in the gardens and this seedling is the only red planted under this back canopy that consistently holds its color. I allowed some friends to take cuttings two years ago and I am waiting to see what their experience is with their grafted offspring. I have attached two photos of the tree taken 22 April 2006. I when to take some additional close up pictures today but is too windy. I guess the point that I am trying to make is that often A.P. seedlings can be quite remarkable in their characteristics. Ed
No weird intentions ;o)) My garden is in a woodland setting and I have had little luck getting red cultivars to hold to their color in the shade. Since the description in the books is not complete on this point I thought a lot of people could be interested to share experiences; so thanks to everybody. To answer Jim on the Enkan, yes mine looks like Esveld's which is not surprising since I bought it from them. It holds well the red in shade. I am really surprised to hear that Moonfire does not green out in shade, could it be that there are several 'strains' of Moonfire around?. On Red Filigree Lace there seems to be consensus and this is good news for as I wanted a red dissectum for a shady spot. Ed, what you say rings a bell here. I also have a red seedling that has been in the ground for 7 years in shade. It is only 1.5 m and stays red (not a dark red) throughought all the growing season. I am attaching two pics taken today. Gomaro
All california and oregon hooplah aside, I have gotten some really nice specimens from the NJ area. This maple intrigues me as the bloodgoods I've seen green out quite easily with shade. Could be an original bloodgood strain....which unless I'm wrong started out in the NY area.
I've had my moonfire a few years, and unlike other stuff I only have one of it. It's color ranges from plain red to deep purple...very purple in shade. My climate is unique in that we range from extremely high humidity to long droughts in summer. In july many of my culitvars shed their leaves and bud out for awhile, sometimes they re-leaf sometimes they wait till fall. The fresher the re-leaf, the brighter the fall colors. It may be that I'm missing a phase because of that leaf drop. It is also a very slow grower..sloooow.
Yes, with all the Oregon and California hoopla, I forgot you had maples in Louisiana--makes sense you get maples from the East coast as it is much closer. In comparison to other purple leafed varieties, I would agree that Moonfire is quite slow growing. I have not seen it shed its leaves here, but they do get quite beat up by the heat if we try in grow it in direct mid-day sun. Unfortunately they stay on the tree and rarely do I see much of a second flush of growth or subsequent budding under damaged leaves on Moonfire--upholding the idea that it relatively slow growing.
People forget that the Maples in the East originated from plants that came to them from the West. Even most of Mr Hohman's plants that he had in Maryland in the teens came from a West Coast source. We have to stipulate sometimes the age of the plant and how long we've had it or have been around it to say with certainty that a Moonfire can handle shade or not. A juvenile plant of less than 7 years of age from someone that is still a novice in Maples by years of having these plants is not going to tell us much when other people have been around this Maple for over 20 years. Moonfire came East came from the West and let's set the record straight right here and now, Moonfire was named by Dick Bush in Canby, Oregon and that plant after it had been evaluated for a few years was later sent to Fred Bergman at Raraflora nursery and Richard Wolff got his Moonfire from Fred. It was due to the error in judgement by Mr. Vertrees in his second edition book that was carried over to the next edition and in between charade was included in another major work on Maples, as J.D. knew where the original Maple came from all along and it did not originate in Oregon but came about as a seedling selection in California. As a result of the mess he created for others, J.D. had to get his plant from Wolff. The photo in the Vertrees second edition book is of Don Kleim's plant and as described in the van Gelderen et al Maples of the World book does indeed have almost the same Spring color as a Nuresagi. A black-red colored "Moonfire" is not a Moonfire! Mr. Wolff did indeed raise a seedling but it did not come from Bloodgood that was outlet to people on the East Coast later on in the very late 80's as being Moonfire. That Maple and the Henderson Experimental Gardens plant that had already been in Japan for almost 20 years prior to then are not even close to being the same plant. We can see the Wolff seedling in the 'Why is my "bloodgood" turning green?' thread if we pay enough attention to what we are seeing. The dark purple-red form of "Moonfire" that has been outlet and sold to the East Coast through an Oregon wholesaler is technically a Musashino, count the lobes sometime and there is a seedling of it that has made its way into the nursery trade from another Oregon grower and it is that plant that can handle shade but not hot direct sun and holds its color better grown in shade than the Wolff seedling, Moonfire and Musashino can. The Wolff seedling can handle direct sun the best of this group and we can see proof of that in the 'Why is my "bloodgood" turning green?' thread. Jim
That sounds reasonable, the only problem being that this black-purple strain grows very slow, where every nuresagi I've had grows very quickly...same speed as my nicholsonni, Inazuma, and seiryu. My one and only moonfire is very slow, in fact the only cultivars that grow slower(that I own) are red filigree lace, toyama nishiki, and baby lace. My nuresagi also has larger leaves than the moonfire and the form seems more upright. I have seen more ruby red varieties though, so I can believe that it's not an original as mine is very purple in the shade.
I'm very happy with the maples I'm getting from NY and NJ. Not to say that cali or oregon have nothing to offer... I get maples there too and really all over the states. Just not in the summer, dead maples in boxes make me very unhappy. I've gotten maples everywhere really...I'll buy anything original that I don't have. Of course the original strains are desirable, but if you can't find them...then you can't find them. Besides, I have more than enough room for the originals and the mutations, I would just like to be able to tag them correctly. I'm in no rush though, some parts I am still adding the right overstory trees.
