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Japanese Maples Fall Show (part 2)

Happy November, the season of fall colors!
This is the last of our blog posts featuring Japanese maples. We will transition to some excellent plant pairings in our next series.
But while autumn is here, let’s enjoy the fleeting colors before the leaves fall from the trees.

Acer palmatum ‘Shigitatsu sawa’ is one of the maples we showcased during our spring feature of our blog post. Spring’s bright yellow coloration changes to more greenish in summer before fall color displays of burgundy-red and purple. This unique maple has such a remarkable color change throughout the seasons that make it incredibly unique.

Acer palmatum ‘Shigitatsu sawa’
Acer palmatum ‘Shigitatsu sawa’

Acer palmatum ‘Ariadne’ is a maple that deserves to be more widely produced. Its bright orange color in spring later becomes more green in summer, but by fall, a brilliant orange-red color returns, somewhat highlighted by the pattern of the leaf veins and the reticulation. The change for fall is gradual, with some leaves remaining green while others are bright red, quite a unique characteristic.

Acer palmatum ‘Ariadne’
Acer palmatum ‘Ariadne’

Another maple we previously discussed in our spring feature blog posts is Acer palmatum ‘Peaches and Cream’. As mentioned before, this is one of our favorite maples for year-round color. Orange and white spring color later transform to a host of green, yellow, orange, and red. We still have a limited supply available in the 1-gallon size.

Acer palmatum ‘Peaches and Cream’
Acer palmatum ‘Peaches and Cream’

Acer palmatum ‘Manyo no sato’ is a unique maple with strange leaf formation and variegation, also one which we mentioned during the spring feature. After the darker tones of spring and summer, fall color brings on a combination of pink, orange, and green.  Its remarkable contrasting fall color makes this compact tree a real winner in any landscape.

Acer palmatum ‘Manyo no sato’
Acer palmatum ‘Manyo no sato’

While ‘Manyo no sato’ has an interesting color combination year-round, other varieties such as ‘Ogon sarasa’ are most notable for their fiery fall display. Burgundy-red leaves take on a host of orange, yellow, and crimson red in autumn. This outstanding maple is available only in the larger container size that makes for a substantial landscape tree.

Acer palmatum ‘Ogon sarasa’
Acer palmatum ‘Ogon sarasa’

Another one of those varieties which looks good in all seasons is Acer palmatum ‘Kuro hime’. Petite, dark green leaves brighten to a magnificent orange-red color in fall. The globose habit of this amazing maple makes it look like a glowing ball in mid-fall. Since this is one of our favorites, we offer it in a wide array of sizes, from small grafts to our large, 10-gallon stock plants.

Acer palmatum ‘Kuro hime’
Acer palmatum ‘Kuro hime’

Acer palmatum ‘Iro iro’ is another variety with small leaves, but it is faster-growing and more upright than ‘Kuro hime’. In the spring feature blog posts, we featured this variety with its cream-colored variegation on leaf margins in spring and summer. In fall, the variegation turns hot pink, giving this tree vibrantly-striped foliage! ‘Alpenweiss’ is a variety very similar to ‘Iro iro’ but the variegation is not as stable; that is why we prefer to produce ‘Iro iro’.

Acer palmatum ‘Iro iro’
Acer palmatum ‘Iro iro’

By contrast to the last two small-leaf varieties, Acer japonicum ‘Taki no gawa’ has perhaps the largest leaves of any maple we have! Some leaves are up to 4” across,  giving the various colors even more presence on this upright tree. A mix of orange, yellow, red, and green can be seen on these massive leaves!

Acer japonicum ‘Taki no gawa’
Acer japonicum ‘Taki no gawa’