orange dream smooth japanese maple

order: sapindales
family: sapindaceae
genus: acer
species: palmatum
cultivar: 'Orange Dream'

First Story

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19 january 2014

colourful autumn foliage 2012.

This japanese maple cultivar is a very vigorous one with growth reaching over 50 cm within a single season. New leaves emerge in the spring in pairs. Its colour is yellow with reddish tips which slowly turns into mid-green as summer approaches. When colder days of autumn are around, they begin to turn into a fiery amber. Right before they fall, they are almost as red as those of the wild species. New branches carry chlorophyll for many years before eventually becoming woody.

My intention with this plant is to train it into a middle-sized (chuhin) bonsai. As soon as I brought this metre tall plant back home in early autumn 2012, I pruned it back to only some 30 cm, leaving the two trunk lines diverging at the soil level. I want to have one thicker main trunk and a more slender one growing sideway. They call this kind of styling the "father-and-son". In order to achieve shorter internodes, I gave it a root prune while repotting and was very easy with fertiliser and water before the breaking of buds. Despite this the plant sent out shoots with long internodes and large leaves. Perhaps I need not care about this at this stage as it's still a long way to go for the tree to mature. I'll just continue to do what I do and record the whole progress as it grows and ages.

buds breaking early spring 2013.

late spring / early summer 2013.

Update

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28 june 2015

after unfolding in spring 2015.

It's true what they say; Japanese maples do not respond well to major pruning, especially outside of their native region. The cut I had made in late 2012 have shown absolutely no sign of healing. The Japanese wound paste proved to be a total rubbish. It didn't heal or prevent disease. Fungi made their ways down to the base of the trunk thereby ruining my little tree. In order to stop the fungi from spreading, I had to remove the son (the thinner side stem) which has begun to wilt and shrink, and rework on the wound of the previous lead. I seriously don't know if the main stem is going to make it, now that there are 2 major cut areas on it that are open to fungus attack. It'll be a pity to loose the tree because it has already ramified quite nicely in the past years. The wounds have to heal before the next fungi find their ways here. Right now I'm doing all that I can to prevent fungus attack. I'm being extra careful when watering the plant so as not to wet the wound at the base. Also, I've moved it to our sheltered balcony to protect it from being exposed to wet weathers outdoors. Only when it's absolutely sunny do I bring it out in the open. If it's terribly rainy outside, I'd bring it indoors. I'm considering dabbing some fungicide onto the wounds as preventive measures, but ultimately if callus doesn't form, I won't be able to keep the plant for long. Hopefully it does. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

smooth japanese maple

order: sapindales
family: sapindaceae
genus: acer
species: palmatum
*compare downy japanese maple (acer japonicum), fullmoon maple (acer shirasawanum) and siebold's maple (acer sieboldianum).

seedling with cotyledons and first pair of true leaves.

We gathered some seeds from some beautiful maple trees last autumn. Those trees have tiny leaves of not more than 10cm across. Back home I did scarification on some of the collected seeds and kept the rest in my seed collection. Those that have been scarified were subsequently kept in the refrigerator, sealed up in a transparent zippy bag filled with moist soil. They didn't sprout as soon as I expected. By March I thought it wasn't going to be anything, so I removed the bag from the fridge and placed it outdoor. A few weeks later, to my amazement, those seeds sprouted! I can't tell for sure how many percent sprouted, but in the end I could only find two surviving sprouts in the mass of soggy soil with the help of my tweezers. The rest was a mess.

Meanwhile I've also sown the remainder of seed stock directly into the ground. From this batch, I've got four surviving seedlings. Though they have been severely munched by insects and prolly other animals. My original plan was to leave them where they are to grow on their own for the first year, so I know if they can survive in the wild without human intervention. I gave up on this after my friend, with whom I collected the seeds had been nagging me to dig them out. I suppose this species, which is native to Japan does need protection from cold winter for their first few years, since it has a weaker growth than those that are native here. Now dug out, let's hope they survive the shock.

more leaves.