Well, this forum has been pretty quiet so I thought I'd show a few pictures of my fall color this year, such as it was. I didn't get that much so if anyone would like to hop on board and add some of their photos from this year I think that would be great.
This photo is of a Koto No Ito.
A very small Sharp's Pygmy.
A sun-scorched Glowing Embers that still turned a pretty nice red.
Same Koto No Ito as before but about a week later in the season.
Orangeola. I was pretty disappointed with this one this fall.
Otto's Dissectum in the foreground and the really red one in the background is a boring old Bloodgood . . . which gave me the best color this year!
The aforementioned boring Bloodgood.
Another view of an earlier pictured Glowing Embers
gsox those look good - even the boring bloodgood, still a nice tree just a lot of them and i have 2 :)
i will add a few, this fall was not as good as last year. here is the much loved and hated sango kaku
acontifolium
crimson carole
autumn moon
shirazz just beginning to the right
orangeola to the right and wolfs eye dogwood in rear that is stunning in the fall
the larger sango kaku in the rear with a crimson queen in front that had not yet turned
acontifolium again with villa taranto to the right
and last one - this was taken during the freak snow storm we had this fall - we lost power for 6 days, no heat or water as we are on a well - and many branches of jm's were lost as well, some suffered major damage like a glowing embers, and we lost 20' celestial white dogwood, it just snapped 2" off the ground as i had wrapped the branches with wire to give it more straight and hold it up, the snow was so heavy it tilted the tree to one side and finally could not hold the weight - pretty depressing during clean to see all the damage.
this picture has shirazz to the right, bloodgood to the left, and sango kaku in the middle.
Love the aconitifolium. I hope my attaryi colors up like that next year. Most of my maples were pretty dull this fall; I blamed it on the snow. The snow didn't affect your fall color, BIll?
hi soj - only a few colored up good and i was busy with my large project so did not get a chance to watch too closely. might have been the snow or the dry weather ?
Sad about your snow damage Bill. It is so hard when mother nature slaps us down like that! Liked the little stones on wire art work that was in one of the pictures.
nice catch granite! - supposed to be a stone "flower" arrangement - saw these at the maine botanical gardens and thought i can do that" - a quick stop in rockport, ma for some beach stones, order some brass rods, grab the hammer drill and done :) I have a few with different size stones (and rods).
I went out 4 times in that storm to shake the snow off that night too - just too wet and too much. I have a Stewarthia Pseudocamilia in a large container that needed a place to be planted and that will replace the celestrial white dogwood and i have another celestrial white so maybe the big guy upstairs decided to do some redesign.
We had some doozy windstorms here right as my garden was in full fall glory. I had a day of fall before the winds blew all the leaves away!
Here's a view of Shishi:
'Emperor I', 'Koto no ito', 'Amber Ghost'
On the right is Parrotia persica 'Vanessa'
'Viridis', 'Oregon Sunset', and 'Elegans'
'Orange Dream' and 'Waterfall'
'Shirazz', Parrotia persica 'Persian Lace', an unhappy Fagus, 'Kamagata', 'Nishiki gawa', and 'Orangeola'.
'Aconitifolium' espalier
oops- 'Aconitum' espalier:
Fagus sylvatica 'Dawyck', 'Emperor I', 'Bonfire', and an espaliered 'Kieffer' pear
gs- that Bloodgood is insane! A wonderful foil for Otto. Are all of yours in pots? Will Sharp's go in a pot? It's beautiful.
And wha, what a great loved/hated Sango! It looks gorgeous in front of your house. I envy you MA and PNW people who can grow that. I've never gotten a Sango to live for very long.
Plantaholic, thanks. The Bloodgood does act as a pretty good foil even if the tree itself is pretty common. Not all of mine are in pots but most of them are because most of the areas in my yard that are good locations for Japanese maples are covered in concrete or stone. It gets so hot here in the summers that I try to keep all my JMs in as much shade as possible.
As for Sharp's Pygmy, I originally bought it because it was supposed to be a dwarf and therefore a good container tree. I noticed, however, that when the 4th edition of Vertrees' book came out they said that they no longer consider Sharp's to be a true dwarf as it gets above 10 feet at maturity. I've kept mine in a pot for several years now and it certainly seems like a dwarf judging by the slow growth rate . . . but then again, it's in a pot and that seems to slow the growth of all my JMs.
I loved the Acontium espalier. What a great idea. For some reason I never thought of doing that with a JM but maybe someday I will now. I enjoyed your other photos too. Thanks for sharing.
same here plantaholic thanks for sharing - nice photo's and that fall color of the shirazz was nice. we have seen one jm espaleired on a garden tour and it looked great - your acontifoium a keeper and will have to look into shishi
gs, I'm trying two jms in pots this year: 'Koshimino' and 'Sunny Sister'. So far, we've had an exceptionally mild winter, so my fingers are crossed. Of course it's only January..... I've wanted Sharp's for a long time but couldn't find it, so I have Caperci and Tattoo instead. It seems there are so few real dwarf jms. I have way too many jms in a limited space, so I practice what I call "Macro Bonsai" on many of them.
I work in a garden center in the summer, which started offering espaliered Bloodgoods and Waterfalls several years ago, so when I found the Aconitifolium I nabbed it. Although the opposite branching makes for interesting geometric shaping, I prefer the curvy, loosy-goosey method the ones at work had.
wha, definitely do shishi!!! That's a jm that's work plunking down big bucks, since it's so slow. Although, I bought a bunch of #1 plants this summer that I'm going to treat as super-dwarf, along with a bunch of 'Mikawa yatsubusa' that I got at work last year. Capitalizing on the slow growth!
Shirazz is, in my mind, far more spectacular in spring. In previous years, it didn't do much in fall, so last year was a treat. I also love your pic of the snow. The loss of Celestial Shadow is horrible, though. Mother Nature can be cruel!
Sorry for rambling, it's hard to restrain myself when talking about jms!
ramble away this forum is way to slow - I was very happy last year when my shirazz had the nice fall color - really like that tree in all seasons and it maybe the hardiest jm i have - just planted out a second one after letting the one gallon grow for a couple years.
is your shishi the lion's head maple?
It was a celestrial white i lost although funny you should say celestrial shadow as i was just walking the yard and had forgotten i bought one in the fall that i am over wintering before planting out - and here is was looking a getting more jm's - better do an inventory before i do and more ordering :)
