Maple flowers?

My Maiku Jaku is blooming! It has the very best flowers of any of my maples. I'd love to see your photos.

Here's a seedling with buds.

Oh my, how beautiful! I never knew there was a blooming AP!

They are small and fleeting so you have to be aware that they are there. Some of the seedpods are spectacular too. I can't believe that I don't have a photo but one of my seedlings has bright red winged seed pods that are pretty wonderful. You still have to get up close to see them though.

I posted this somewhere else but if you look at this photo carefully you'll see that it's covered with tiny red flowers.

Edited to say, well, maybe not. :-)

This message was edited Apr 1, 2006 5:15 PM

Here's Acer japonicum 'Aconitifolium' doin' it's thing.

Another one that really put on a nice display this year with its flowers was Azuma murasaki. The individual flowers themselves were not showy, but the overall tree and the way it presented them was very nice. Unfortunately I left town on vacation and didn't get a good picture in it's prime. Doh!

Lovely. Maiku Jaku and 'Aconitifolium' are the very same cultivar. I think that it has a third name. Oh, Dancing Peacock. There's a fourth. Something like Fernleaf Full Moon Maple. People had a very good time with this one!

I think those are great pics. I had no idea that JM flowers looked this nice until I started looking at all the pics on this site.

Laura

Generally you have to look carefully and know that they are there. It's a secret known to few.

Doss,
Who cares if your tree has blooms or not at this time in the pic you posted....I'm glad you posted because it's a lovely inspiration for all of us!! Your garden is absolutely breathtaking! I'd love to see more of it...can you post more pics??

Connie

Here are my photos.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=oa9i3vs.5o8p9mk&Uy=-khshg8&Ux=1
Just say that you will sign in later - then you don't have to.

There is a button at the bottom left of the page that lets you browse thumbnails so that you don't need to see every photo.

I just spent about 15 minutes looking at all 3 albums...and I did look at every photo!...and I kept thinking, "This is the picture I'll tell doss is my favorite" and then I'd find another wonderful one! Needless to say, I'm really impressed! AND, I have a few questions.
1. It seems one or two or your JM's are NOT under shade or the canopy of another tree. Do some of them take strong sun? We have summer days here in Austin of up to 105 or so--last year had 2 weeks of over 100 in a row.

2. Is the reddish plant something like Cordyline? I just bought 10 yesterday. Or is it New Zealand Flax?

3. Did you put in the pavers yourself? Are they hard to do?

4. Is your lighting electric or solar cell? Which do u recommend?

5. Which JM's do you suggest I start with? Which are easiest to work with? I have 2 huge Red Oaks in my front garden and want to underplant with JM's. I bought a 6' Kaku (I think...green leaves and bright red bark!) at a local nursery but husband want LARGER ones.

Thanks !

Connie in Austin

Connie

Thanks for taking a cruise through my garden and it's history. If you were closer I'd invite you over for tea!

It seldom gets over 100 here but it gets close and sometimes it's been for a week or so. My maples haven't suffered although I get some leaf burn. This doesn't seem to hurt the tree, just the esthetics of the tree.

The ones I want to be workhorses like the one next to the pool and next to the front lawn are seedling maples. It's a risk because you don't know what they will look like when they grow up and can't really tell the dimensions or color. I think that I would have been safe with a grafted tree though if it was carefully hardened. That means it needs to gradually get used to it's environment if there has been a big change.

Many of the red cultivars don't actually do well with shade because they turn green.

Sango Kakus get to about 25-30 feet tall here and grow in full sun. Your DH will be happy. Don't let it's current size fool you.

My best suggestion is to find a local JM nursery if you have one and ask them which work best in full sun there. At the local nurserys here you can tell because the sun maples are sitting in the sun and the others are sitting in the shade.

Try this thread. It has links to a lot of good search engines and tree sellers.
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/589257/

Once you find a tree you like, google it and find out how it is described on other websites. I've seen trees described anywhere from a height of 10 to a height of 25. I think that Mountain Maples is especially understates final size of their plants. This is primarily because JM's haven't been grown in places like Texas and California until the mid 70's and they grow much bigger here. Also, newer cultivars haven't had time to be tested here. Assume the maximum.

It's New Zealand Flax and it's coming out . It blocks the view of the iris and dahlias in the summer time. Plus that it's just way out of proportion. So much for why it's going out. I'm replacing it with a JM.

You can't really do pavers yourself. It's hard and you have to saw them with a water cutter. It's really a craft.

The lights are electric. I didn't really consider solar. So much of my yard is in shade that it didn't make any sense.

Hope that it helps. Where were you planning on using your Ti plant? Are you relieved that it's not going to get so big?

It's strange...maybe I never noticed...or maybe it was the mild winter but almost 3/4 of my 30 or so jm's are blooming this year some I know for the first time in 10 years...and not just a few blooms but covered with them ...strange... I have a large atropluplurium that has a bizzion blooms COVERED fron top to bottom..I will try to get da wife to shot it tomorrow and post it my photographic skills are alcking to say the least...David

Please do David! Be nice to that wife of yours so we can see the photos.

Doss...thanks so much for the extensive reply! Sorry to take so long to respond, but I just got back from Naples, Florida for a few days and wow, was I lucky! Our hotel (the Hilton) was RIGHT NEXT DOOR to the most fabulous nursery in Naples! I spent many hours perusing their selections and dreaming! A fabulous basalt fountain (modern monolith) is my first wish, with a black river-rock bed (disappearing type fountain)!! So much work to do....:)
connie

You're welcome. It sounds as if you have quite a project in front of you.

So David. Where are those photos? Get the DW to work, would you? But give her a hug first. :-)

Doss got the photos just got to shrink 'em some nice ones on my berrima bridge (BYW a really neat JM).... with flowers and a good shot of the bizzillion on the atro looking up with blue sky background... about the only way to get them to show up...will do the work and post tomorrow ..dave's doesn't like or shrink large jpegs so i got to do it ...manana bro ( how do you put that ~ above the n ...only pedro knows ;>) ) My wife thinks I just never noticed them ...she might be right if there were just a few but NO WAY I could have missed this many on almost all my old ones and most of my new ones ...really odd..... David

Looking forward to them!

here's the berrima bridge...it was windy so not perfect but close...David

Here's a generic cut lesf red Jm about 12 years old or older ...first time I've ever seen blooms

heres the atrpluplurium ...tried to show how many there are on a very small portion of the tree..not easy ..David

Thank you SO much. They are beautiful. I love semi-secret things in nature that you only see by taking time to pay attention. Of course I also love big flowering exhibits but there is something so sweet about the little events.

ANd your photos (or the DW's photos) are really wonderful.

hers's two more of the berrima bridge ...I like it the best althjough I've got a ton of other flower shots or DW does ;>) David

last one as I said it was windy or these would be crisper and they have been shrunk with less pixels to go on site that last one looks n=muco clearer on my cpu this next one is relly backlit with the sun...David

They are beautiful and clear. I know what you mean about the wind though. JM are really hard to photo when there is even a breeze - but that movement is one of the things that makes them so special, don't you think?

How many megapixils is your camera? I don't think that most people reduce their photos. I've never reduced mine and I've never seen mention of any need to do it. It's not in the FAQ and I know that It's a pain to reduce photos. I don't want you to be put off by the need to do it if it's not necessary. I think that if you save them as jpegs then it's not a problem. Someone just asked the question on DG forum. On the other hand it does take some time to load larger files but not IMHO as long as reducing them.

Doss Unless I resize them they won't post just white blank page over and over it tries but cant quite do it some are 4-5 mgs though so that is big it's no big deal just a couple extra steps and resaving them smaller her canera is a 5 mega pixil canon g5 I belive but she's got closeup lenses wide angle etc for it may get a dig. slr someday ...... David

Guess they must be bigger than mine. Good reason to skip getting a better camera?

This seedling maple has wonderful winged seedpods.

I have a 7 Mp camera, and I have to reduce my pics. I normally crop to the leaf or size I want, then reduce to around 400-400 pixels across the top and the size ends up resonable, with the files typically around 100-200 Kbytes, which loads fairly fast, but also gives enough detail in the picture for it to be fairly clear.

Doss, you are right, it is very hard for me to photograph maples, my camera always wants to focus past the leaves, or the leaves are moving and I get a blur. I take lots of pics, and hope for the best.

Laura

That explains it. I have a 5MP Panasonic. The photos are about half the size of David's.

Laura, does it do that even with the macro?

It sure does. I have a lot of pics with blurry leaves in the foreground, and clear branches, trunks, or underplantings in the background. Drives me crazy sometimes!

On the plus side, my itty bitty Viridis had some itty bitty flowers today!

Note: BIG file for this pic, I just cropped it, did not reduce the size just so you can see how big they can be. Rule of thumb...3 Megapixel full resolution picture makes a great snapshot and fairly clear 5x7, maybe not very grainy 8x10. 5 Megapixel makes a great 8x10, 7 or more Megapixels can be blown up to 11x17 with a nice clear shot.

Laura

FYI My wife has blown up digs From her 5 mgp to 24x30 through ophoto and they are sharp as a tack but your rule of thumb may apply to most cropping is a good idea though...David

Love the Viridis. One I'd love if I had a little more shade.

Today the seedling maple next to the pool was buzzing out loud! The bees were having a hay day. You have to look closely because the seeds on this one are tiny and there is a bee in there but it's not close enough to see. I was too short to get close enough!

Heheheh, I can see the seeds, but feel like I'm trying to "find Waldo" looking for the bee!

Dumb question...if there are seeds, are they likely to be fertile? I know they probably won't be true to the parent, but might be fun to put some in my garden plot and see what grows. Is it rude to ask a nursery what they do with their seeds and see if they offer some? Some of the maples were loaded today.

Laura

The seeds from the seedlings I have are certainly fertile. We have little seedlings that I actually have to weed out in the spring. I haven't seen any volunteers from grafted cultivars though. That doesn't mean that they aren't fertile. I've seen a lot of Bloodgood seeds on the market.