Any hope for a Japanese Maple that was pruned to be upright?

I don't know if anyone has the answer or not. But here's the question. My husband and I were given a Japanese Maple for our 20 anniversary (7 yrs. ago). We had to leave the house in '03 and I couldn't dig up the tree, so it was left. The people who bought it from us have sold the house and I know the new people who bought it. So I went to see what "my" backyard looks like now. The thing that jumped out at me the most, was that the guy after us had tried pruning the Japanese maple to be a standard. It's maybe 3' tall. It doesn't weep, but the branches are supposed to go outward and creep out. That's all been hacked off, leaving only the middle top part. It looks ridiculous. The new owner was asking me if there was any hope for the tree coming out it or not. I have no idea, so I thought I'd ask here. Anyone know? Sorry, I don't have a picture.

Thanks for any help anyone might have,
Terry

The response to pruning by a JM varies somewhat from cultivar to cultivar. Do you know which JM? That would help almost as much as a picture. Try posting too over in the JM forum. There are a lot of really knowledgeable posters and hybridizers over there that can give you the specific information you need. From my own experience with JM's I can say confidently that many JM's do respond well to pruning and produce new growth. It just depends on the variety and how bad was the hack job.

And doesn't it just gall you about what some poeple can do to a plant?!

Oh my gosh, you have no idea on how they pruned some of my plants. No plant was safe from him. The weeping cherry no longer weeped, because he pruned it up so high, it couldn't weep anymore. It suddenly died. I wonder why? Rhetorical question, no need to answer☺

I shouldn't really have said upright, I meant to say into a standard.

I didn't even pay any attention to what all kinds of forums there are here. I will get a picture, hopefully tomorrow. I'm afraid the tag on the tree is long gone. I had left it with those people and what they did with it is anyones guess. The new people said nothing was left about the yard at all. I had left a 4 page note detailing the whole yard. Then again, those people touted it as being professionally landscaped too. I don't know when I became a professional, but that's how they listed it. I corrected their Realtor, but it never was corrected in the print for the house.

So anyway, thank you snapple!

I'll bet the grounds were georgous. That just makes it all the more sad. When you can get the picture then you'll get some truly helpful information.

Terry - it can be really, really hard on a person to see what new owners do to our left behind treasures. When I moved into a new house in early 2007, hubby and I drove back to the town where we lived for almost 2 years to look to see what became of our "old" house. I swore I will never do it to myself again. The yard had an ugly huge cyclone fence, so I originally planted about 10 different kinds of clematis that had finally been coming into their own. They were all ripped out, completely. I planted dozens of bulbs: lilies, tulips, daffodils. All gone, ripped out completely. My solace was that they installed a child's playground set where the "dog yard" used to be - aka I was tickled that their spawn now played where my dogs pooped : P I didn't do such a great job about keeping that area clean, it was a small gravel area next to a neighbor I could not stand.

A few months later, we drove back again (we still use the vet in that town for our dogs). Everything was just lawn, but it didn't look too bad. I was kind of happy to see that the place was well maintained. The owners of the house before we had it were blind and lost the house in a foreclosure - it was in BAD shape when we moved in. There was literally almost no lawn, no bushes, lots of glass from hasty window repairs before the bank that repo'd the house put it on the market.

Now, we've been in this house almost as long as we were in the older house, and I love everything ten times more. For the first months, before things began to come together, I had my doubts. We'll probably move again in 5 or so years to a larger house with more property. I go back and forth even now over "what will move with us" and in my heart I know that there will be things that I will leave that will get ripped out by the next owner (unless we keep the house as a rental, which we very well might do). Even things that I "know" are worth hundreds of dollars or more! There is a small oak next to our front porch that I trimmed like a topiary because it is way too close to allow it to get large. I want to just lop it, but my hubby loves that little tree. So, the compromise is that I trim it to next to nothing and it it lives it can stay. It is thriving. I have no doubt that will probably be one of the first things to be cut down by a new owner.

We actually had to sue the former owners of our house because of some extremely faulty self-plumbing they did (we won) and they were shocked to learn that we didn't like their paint jobs - the entire upstairs had blood red trim, one room with puke green walls and the other with blue. They had painted the kitchen in Michigan colors - all yellow and blue. It was heinous. Last week we finally got around to repainting the kitchen to bolero red and white. I think it looks great, but maybe the next owners will hate it.

Sorry for the rant, I just know the feelings you are going through. I can't really offer much advice, other than to say let it slide off because once you no longer own the property there is just zero that you can do to protect some of the plants you loved but couldn't move.

elizabeth

Elizabeth, I know that everything you say is true. I know it. In my head. But my heart, well, that was our first home. We had it built. We brought our daughter home to that house. I had a dog for 16 yrs. that lived happily in that house and with a broken heart back in '99, I had to have her put down ;( Just so many memories and so many plants planted for a reason that might not make any sense to anyone else, but they're my stories just the same. Since our former neighbor is still very dear to me, I go to her house often. It's not hard for me to not see anything. I just happen to have that sort of eye, the kind that sees everything. I have a few complaints, yes I do. But the last people did what they did to make it their own. I don't understand why anyone would rip out plants to stick a rubbermaid shed in that spot or why anyone would chose veggies over my plants (especially a beautiful bleeding heart), but hey, it's not really my house or my yard anymore. in my heart, it will always be "my" house and "my" yard, but I know that isn't really the case. I'm too sensitive ☺ My dad likes to say I don't like change and that's not true. If "I" want it changed, then change is fine..lol.

We moved to TN in July of '03. The company that my husband worked for moved down there, so that's why we sold our first home. We bought another house and I got busy doing my thing. Brand new construction. Here's a photo taken in early '04.

We sold that house in Dec. of that same year, '04. We went down last year, April of '07. And this is what it looks like now. Does this bother me at all? Nope. I laughed so hard I almost wet my pants! I couldn't believe it. These people were asked if they wanted all the plants, did they care, blah blah. Oh yes, they wanted everything. ROFL

This is what it looks like now....



Oh and I forgot, with our first home? Except it's not our furniture in there and my stuff on the walls? It looks exactly the same way☺

Wow! What a change for the worse :(

Believe me, I'm still peeved too! We lived in our first house for less than two years, I can't imagine what it would be like to leave behind 16 years of plants. I'll probably dig most of my hostas to take with me when we move in a few years! I go back and forth with that, because in the area where they are planted really only hostas can thrive (deep shade). However, I know that has not stopped people before from trying to grow....grass.

Next time I move, I'm going to take a lot more of my plants with me. The person who bought my old house said she liked my garden and was a gardener herself, so I left pretty much everything there for her that had been planted in the ground. Then a year later I drove by out of curiosity, and at least in the front yard she had ripped everything up and redone the landscaping. She did do a nice job at least with her landscaping so it's not quite the same situation others are in, but there were a lot of plants in the front yard that I would have loved to dig up and move to my new house if I'd known she was going to rip everything out anyway! So next time stuff's coming with me!

After the first photo was taken, I had added even more plants. I had trees, shrubs and perennials and grasses. All but a Little Gem Magnolia, a lone viburnum, silky dogwood and gray dogwood are gone. We moved from Zone 7 down there in TN back up to zone 5 in late December, so it was hard for me to get much of anything. I did get a few viburnums and some perennials. My dad tilled his veggie garden the next year before my perennials were back, so those were destroyed. Then he also dug up my viburnums and put them in 5 gallon pots. Then it rained. The buckets were overflowing with water and I was so busy here working on this house so we could move in, I didn't know. Such is life. I try not to let it bother me, but it always does. Our first house with the Japanese Maple, bugs/hurts me the most. My husband I both lived there longer than we had lived at home with our parents.

I hate moving. So with positivity, I can say we're not going anywhere until it's nursing home time.

When hubby and I sold our other house (we had lived there for 20 years), I had to leave all my flowers because it was winter and I couldn't tell exactly where they all were. And we had several special trees that were just to big to take. We drove back by the house a couple of years after we sold it and, boy, were we sorry--shouldn't have looked! Most of the trees were dead or gone and the flowers were nothing but lawn. My compensation is that now I have lots more ground, lots more trees, shrubs and flowers and they are all so beautiful. We're out in the country and can sit on the front porch and watch "our" hummers, song birds, rabbits, and deer quietly feeding in our food plot down by the creek. But I still wish I could have brought some of my prized flowers with me. I haven't been able to find replacements for several of them :-(

While at a Master Gardening meeting Friday, this same subject came up. It was the same story for several Master Gardeners. If ever have to move I am sure going to take their advice. Take every plant you can manage and never -ever- go back and look at the old place. Some of those gals were close to tears.

Boy, company sure loves misery, doesn't it?

snapple, I wish it was that easy. When you're not far from the town and you're very close to the neighbors, it's hard to not drive by or be next door. It's impossible really. When we lived in TN, it just never felt like home, I'm sorry to say. I tried to make it our home and I worked very hard on our acre, but there was no attachment there at all. I think that's why I laughed as hard as I did when we did go back by. It was sad, yes, but with no feeling of attachment, there really was no sadness. I was busy in the short time we lived there, building paths, terracing the backyard and then all the plants. Bringing in topsoil/mushroom compost, 75 yards of that and 75 yards of just topsoil. All the mulch. I did have fun because I love doing it and it was really beautiful, but with no attachment, I don't know, it was easy. One thing that was hard, was that I had dug up my grandma's naked ladies---I have no clue on what the Latin name is. Also called surprise lilies I think. Anyway, those were 50 yrs. old when I dug them up from her soon to be sold house. I dug them up from our house up here and took them with me too. In Dec. it was impossible to know where they were, so those I had to leave. I missed one up here. I'm not sure, but I see no sign of it now at our old house. I don't know why anyone would dig something like that up when I first saw it and told the people what it was and how old it was, but it appears to be gone. I also planted some at my moms and dads house, so I can get some from her. My consolation.

Our first home though, that's so different. There is a very strong attachment. We were in our early 20's when we built it, so it felt like we grew up there too. Everything about the house screams Terry (me). I love so many of the neighbors, I have to go back to visit.

The other thing is that I always wanted an old house. With hardwood floors. I even got the wide plank pine floors I've always loved. It took me awhile to find them, but I did. I'd like to be out in the country, but having an old house is more important. I have it now. I worked very hard on this grand old lady. She wasn't listed as a fixer-upper, but she surely was. She's almost done inside, it's only very small things left to do now. I again, worked like a mad woman to make this our home. And I succeeded, I'm happy to say. My tastes in plant choices have evolved too, so in this house, I have everything I want outside. We've only been here (lived in her) since May of '05, and without even mentioning the inside of this house, the yard, the whole outside of the house is so different. Removing the PO's baby blue vinyl siding in the gables to expose the original half cove siding and getting that all painted up in historical colors, was a huge improvement. When the zoning officer in town compliments what you've done, you know you've done good☺ Now to just win the lottery and remove all the vinyl siding and replace the replacement windows. I hear you have to play the lottery though, so I probably won't win anytime soon..lol