Probably not the last time, but always distressing to see. In France there is a brand of Japanese Maple called "Acer." These little plants were for sale in a local Bricomarche (a large DYI store) recently, and I have seen them elsewhere. Prices from 14-21 EU. They had a number of "cultivars", labeled Orange Dream, Katsura, Trompenburg, Seiryu, etc. I noticed that all of the plants had very bad pseudomondas-like blackening, and all had been hard pruned. Then I noticed they had all leafed out. Then I noticed that none resembled in any way the cultivar it purported to be. I picked up a plant and started looking for a graft mark (obvious in plants this young). Had to dig down a little. I tipped the plant out, and saw that it was buried in the very peaty soil perhaps 2 inches above the root crown. (Perhaps the source of the blackening). I removed the excess soil, and lo and behold, it's a seedling. Checked several others, no graft anywhere! Even the red "cultivar seedlings" were pushing out green leaves, in fact the whole lot just looked like standard seedlings. I suspect they were shipped bare root and badly potted at the "grande surface". caveat emptor, yet again! -E
Has the label got a picture of an oriental man with a stick,and a close up of the cultivar in a circle?
AH,thats Van Son&Koot from Netherlands.Maf assures me that they're cutting grown plants and that he's happy with an Orange Dream he bought which I believe was one of these(sorry to name drop Maf) I've got several of their larger grafted maples and all seem ok.I think it could be as Maf suggested,that indoors in a supermarket or similar,the plants just stay green and don't show their true potential.
Well, perhaps I'm mistaken about the label. I may be back there this WE in which case I'll check. But I was absolutely not wrong about the plants: they weren't grafted. As to the other point, pure green "red cultivars?" I've never seen it. Further there was quite a lot of variation in leaf shapes within the "Orange Dream"s. I've seen plenty of green house raised plants, this was much more blatant than that. Anyway all these plants have about 2 months of life in front of them.
I bought a couple of the dirt cheap cutting grown maples from Van Son & Koot in May or June 2010 and they have proved to be very healthy trees, have grown well and are just now leafing out for their third season with me. I did prune out a very small amount of twig dieback when I first purchased them, but since then there has been zero dieback. I could tell by the branching structure, growth habit and absence of a root-flare that they were grown from cuttings rather than seedlings. I would imagine these young cuttings are very sensitive to their environment and if treated badly at the garden centre I would not be surprised to see a lot of blackening and dieback. I am not sure if their named varieties of cuttings are generally true to type, but for the most part when I have seen them in shops they have appeared to be so. One I bought was an 'Orange Dream' and I am 99.9% sure it is true to type. It is in a different garden to my older 'Orange Dream' which makes it difficult to compare the two to make 100% sure. The other I bought as a curiosity because it was a dwarf JM called 'Green Globe'. I know there is a dissectum called 'Green Globe', but the company was in no way trying to pass their 'Green Globe' as that plant, the description and picture on the label was for a dwarf plant somewhat similar to 'Little Princess'. More on that plant here: Dwarf JM Acer palmatum 'Green Globe' (but not dissectum) These cuttings have done much better than grafted maples I bought the same year from a supermarket (dead after first winter) and from a local independent garden centre (major dieback last spring and this). In the past I have had some good experiences with grafted plants bought from supermarkets and the like, but I am no longer willing to take the risk, and will stick to a couple of favoured specialists when buying grafts. The cuttings grown Japanese maples are a different category entirely, and I will continue to buy them from wherever I can see them to inspect the health before purchase.
Well, I experienced a total parsing failure with Houzi's post. Sorry about that. Maf managed to penetrate my thick skull... I was unaware that anyone was growing cuttings at large commercial scale. I'm interested Maf if you see generally that cuttings are better quality as some sources state they are prone to sudden failure. Like you, I don't buy grafts from anyone but a few specialist producers. Out of interest, how can you tell a cutting from a seedling? Cuttings or no, it is surprising to see "Atropurpureum" and "Trompenburg" leafing out green. I'll grant you that Orange Dream can have very variable spring coloring, and given that these plants were all dying, maybe no conclusion should be drawn from that. Of course it's also possible, as often occurs, that the labels got swapped around by the garden center. FWIW Houzi, these were outside, so artificial light was not the issue. Anyway I'm _still_ scandalized! :)
I have a few from Van Son & Koot as well which I found at the Truffaut Garden Center 10 min from where I live. But they were not all cuttings; One, Marlo, was definitely grafted while another 'Red Wine' was a cutting. Gomero
I must admit Emery,it was the variable Orange dreams that got me 'chatting' with Maf about these plants.They were however very small cuttings(11cm pots),about £3 each so perhaps that has an influence at first??.Re-reading your post,yours must be the 3ltr versions judging from the price.At that size and price(or any) I agree,there's no excuse for selling them like that! Incidentally,I only have one 3ltr cutting of theirs,and that funnily enough is 'Marlo'.What do you think of this cultivar Gomero? When I first saw it last year I was blown away by the brilliance of the pink colour....infact I went back a couple of months ago and bought one and ran a few grafts off it.Be interesting to see if the colour is as bright after grafting.
I have had a 100% success rate with purchased JM cuttings but, as that is only three out of three, I don't have a large enough sample to draw any conclusions. One of them is around ten years old and still growing strong; an 'Orange Dream' growing in a container. Once established, I don't see why they would be more susceptible to sudden failure, but I can see how they might be when still new. The choice of variety of cuttings grown Japanese maples seems to be generally much fewer than that of grafted ones, as I believe some cultivars are more suited to this method of propagation than others. I know that Jim (Mr Shep) has stated on more than one occasion that the old timers in Japan always preferred their maple clones to be grown on their own roots, with the inference being that the probability of longevity of said plants was high. I thought that would be easy to explain, because I do not find it difficult to tell the difference, but actually explaining it in words is not so easy. In many ways the cutting still looks like a stick that has been stuffed into a small pot, because that is what it is. There is generally no taper to the lower stem and no root flare yet, the roots seem to grow from somewhere under the soil rather than the surface, and the internode spacing on the stem seems different to what you would expect from a seedling. The lower stem of the cutting is also usually ramrod straight, but not oriented vertically, which gives it a somewhat odd appearance. If you have the chance to buy a healthier cutting than the ones seen before, try growing it alongside seedling maples and you will soon learn the visual differences between the two. The visual cues are more easily learned from observation in person than they are from reading an explanation in words on the internet, but I have made an attempt at a description anyway.
Just to add that I had not picked up on the pricing until I read Houzi's post above. The cuttings I bought have been the same size and price as he mentions, £3-4 and 10-11cm pots, but I have seen some bigger ones for sale on occasion. Not sure if they were as much as €14-21 though (I doubt it).
Yes I'd guess these were 3 liter pots. I can tell a tiny cutting also! but these are further along, and so it may be harder to tell. I didn't get back today to look at them, unfortunately. However I do remember distinctly on the one I tipped out it was multi-stemmed from almost from the ground. I get only a few seedlings that take on a similar habit. Dirr et al report that better cutting success can be attained by forcing plants in the greenhouse and utilizing young shoots. The technique is described by Wells, J.S. in American Nurseryam 151(9):14, 117-120(1980). He further outlines instructions for a method (too long to list here but after Wells) of getting 80% success rate with Bloodgood and other similarly vigorous cultivars. Maybe this is how Van Son & Koot are proceeding...
I am pretty sure they use the same techniques; pruning and forcing of the mother plants to produce vigorous shoots. The smaller cuttings we see for sale in 2012 season are spring 2011 shoots that were harvested and rooted in spring/summer 2011, and no doubt the larger ones have been grown on for an extra year. Good point about the multiple stems, the ones I see almost always have this habit. Also, it seems to take several years for the cuttings to develop a proper root flare, much longer than seedlings (including plants grafted on seedlings).
With the multi stems,I immediately assumed they're putting in two cuttings together to produce a larger looking plant....could be wrong,I'll have to take a closer look at my 'Marlo' Was in a garden centre today,couldn't believe the prices of their new stock.They wanted £9.99 for these 11cm plants.Also 2.5-3ft trees of no great age were £70....and they had something I've never seen before,a bloodgood top-worked onto a 2.5ft stem,totally unnecessary and again £70.
That's what they do with azalea to have a profusion of flowers, and like you, I thought that maybe they did the same with these acers. But all those that I bought (Orange Dream, Katsura, "Little Princess"...) were actually from a single cutting.
Actually I'm really glad to hear that,I guess it's just the sceptic in me.Just had a quick look at the 'Marlo'....if the 2 stems are joined,it's a long way down.I scraped away 2" deep and could see roots coming from both stems though still seperate at this point....anyway not to worry :)
