Welcome aboard. Couple of nice looking young maples you've got there. Fair warning (and it sounds by the ending to your post you may have been bitten by the bug), buying and growing maples is quite addictive. There's over 600 cultivars of Acer Plamatum and that's only one of the 23 Acer species that inhabit the islands of Japan.

Thanks for sharing and I look forward to following along as you grow and shape your trees.

PS, while the title and the intention of the thread is to follow the growth of Maples, you are more than welcome to share your Oaks as well.

Blake

Sanactified! Where did you order them from? I think I am getting the Maple fever and could use a few more..lol

Peapod...Very nice. I LOVE all your trees and this thread. Thank you:-)

Mike

Thank you Mike!

My Acers are just at the beginning of their spring show. All are in various stages of bud swell or bud break. I've already started pinching buds on many. I hope I get this ramification thing correct.

Lots of bud pinching and heavy pruning in the top from now until mid summer. Hopefully I be able to increase twigginess (sp)in the tops and branch thickness in the lower branches.

I never realized until I started, just how much fun (sometimes stressful) but mostly fun and educational this hobby would be.

Blake

Mike-
I actually found the JM's locally. I was cruising a local nursery for some used planting containers and saw that they were restocking the JM display. I had spent a good portion of last week looking at all the online websites finding the ones I like preparing to make and order and was pleasantly surprised to see they had some I wanted. These were $30 each but they also had larger sized for $70 although I didn't want to spend that much. The Geisha Gone Wild in the larger size was fantastic and I had to have them dig through a fresh cart to find mine. I'm in SLC, UT and the nursery was Millcreek Gardens. They told me that they get a decent selection and to check back every 7-10 days for the new arrivals. I'm not sure if my checkbook can handle that kind of exposure.

In the album I showed the root ball of the two JM's. I was planning on moving to a bigger size container and going with the 5-1-1 mix. The reason why I thought to do this is because they have both leafed out and I don't want to cause too much stress on them. Is this a good plan of action? I was planning on going to a 3 gallon roottrapper bag I have on order. I also picked up a few 5 gallon used containers that I could use if that would work out better.

The autumn moon looks pretty droopy. I am thinking that this is probably from the location stress. I'm pretty sure the plant was trucked from Oregon/Washington to Utah this past week and it just needs a bit of time to acclimate.

I am planning on building a bench for my plants this weekend. I had thought to build it on an RV pad I have that faces direct east. This would give morning sun but no afternoon direct light. What I have read seems to suggest that this is just fine for JM's. I would love to just leave my seedlings out around my yard but my dogs (one kept wandering around while I was taking pictures, she is the naughty one) would eat them in no time at all. Have any of you guys built a potting bench/table for your trees? Any thoughts on what you like with yours or what you would have done different if you have one?

In the 5-1-1 mix how necessary is the gypsum? I found agricultural lime is a smallish bag but only found gypsum in huge 50 lb bags. The last picture is my "pine bark." At the store it was labeled "soil prep conditioner" and doesn't have a content label. It smells like pine but looks to be a little smaller than what is recommended. Is it too small for this mix?

I planted a bunch of acorns in the two raised beds tonight as well. Northern Red Oak, Pin Oak, and Bur Oak. The Bur Oak Acorns were already sending out tap roots and I was pretty happy to be able to get them planted. I also have rootmaker containers (the 18 cell pot size, 1 gallon plastic, and 3 gallon roottrapper bags) on their way. I am hoping to use the 5-1-1 mix for those containers as well and plant up the rest of my acorns and the rest of my Bur Oak seedlings. I am going nuts but am excited to be in a position to be doing this.

Here is a link that might be useful: JM Album

Most of the literature I've read suggest that JM don't like their roots disturbed while they are in leaf. Although I seem to remember reading a couple of web sites where they root prune after the leaves have emerged, I believe those were pretty much all Trident Maples (Acer buergerianum) which seem to be much more forgiving than some of the others. That being said, I believe Al has stated previously how much root pruning a tree will take is largely dependent on how healthy the tree was prior to going dormant. That said, I don't mess with the roots once they're in leaf. All trees I purchase after the tree is in leaf get left in the nursery pot until the following year. If I own instead of rented, I'd plant them all. I'm really a container gardener by necessity, but man I love it.

All the above not withstanding, I think at this point you've got a couple of options.

(1) While the trees' roots are beginning to circle the pots, they don't look as root bound as some I've opened up. Your first option is to leave the trees alone this year. From the pictures the soil appears to be bark based (ie more bark than loam) and with carefully attention you can get the trees through this year just as they are. As stated above, I leave all trees purchased after they are in leaf in the nursery pots they come. Last year I had to be more careful about watering these pots and I always tipped them up on their side after watering to reduce the perched water table in the container, but I was able to get many trees through the year that way.
(2) You can plant the trees for this year (or longer if you wish). Many bonsai trees start in the ground to get good thick trunks prior to beginning the shaping process.
(3) You can pot up with a very similar mix. I wouldn't necessarily got with the 5-1-1 mix. Even though the 5-1-1 mix isn't as open as the 1-1-1 mix, it is still way more freely draining than most nursery mixes. This mix the tree is currently in is probably a mixture of bark, sand, perlite and loam. I don't like this option very much honestly, but it could work. If you go this route, don't go any more than one size up on the container (ie 1 gallon to 2 gallon). Any more and you could cause a stagnant area (wet soil/no roots to pull wetness out of soil).

If you have an east facing spot where the trees will get morning sun and afternoon shade and you own your home, I'd plant the trees for this year. You can put a tomato cage or deer netting around the trees to protect them from the dogs.

I'm not sure, but I believe Salt Lake City gets pretty warm in the summer, so you'll need to watch the Autumn Moon.

For right now I wouldn't worry about the general droopy looking nature. When the shoots first appear the leaves and shoots are droopy. The leaves and shoots should begin to harden off over the next 2 or 3 weeks.

I use Foliage Pro to fertilize my trees and have never made a batch of the 5-1-1 mix (I always use the 1-1-1 mix) so I forget exactly how it goes, but I think the lime lowers pH. If you use gypsum it doesn't effect pH but you have to add epsom salts when you water, I think. Maybe Josh or Al will chip in and correct me if I'm wrong. If you fertilize with Foliage Pro, it has all the essential elements and you don't need to add gypsum and epsom salts.

About the benches, I know many bonsai are set out on benches/platforms in the yard to grow, so that could work, depending on how large you want the trees to get.

Hope this helps.

Blake

Just realized I missed one of your questions.

To prevent a perched water table, the smallest particle size is 1/16". If you have particles smaller than that you should screen your soil conditioner.

Blake

hi sanctified, I actually have been growing oaks from acorns this year also :) I have 12 White Oak and 6 Shumard Oak and 2 Scarlet Oak (very red fall color) and 4 other red oak.. I'd love to find some Bur Oak acorns but not sure how well they would grow in my area or if they even do. I collected the acorns last fall and kept them in frig and just got them started in pots. The only thing about oaks is they are VERY Slow growers :( so if you do plant them out in your yard it will be at least approx 10 to fifteen yrs before they have good size (maybe 15 to 20 ft) at least this is what I've read.. Im growing them because even though I may not be around to see them at adult stage, to me they are awesome trees.
Now back to the maples.. I've been so busy lately with family and work I havent been able to do much picture uploading but my trees are doing well and hope to have pics up soon.

Great looking trees Blake and hope we have a Great Growing Season :)

Josh-
I got all my acorns from Acorno.com. I bought the sample packs for about $2 each. They sent a lot more that the stated 25, and after float testing them I found that I had a lot more than 25 "good" burs and northern reds each. I only had a few pins that sank like they ought to but was more interested in the others anyway.

I am growing them for the same reason. I love big trees. I have room for only a few mature oaks in my yard but plan to plant a lot and thin them out with time. I thought that since I was going to try to grow some from acorn I could try to get a few to bonsai and maybe a few in larger pots.

Everything I have read about Bur Oaks are that they are hardy from zone 3-8. I am a 5 or 6, but a local extension wrote an article a few years ago saying that more people should plant them here because even though they aren't native they do very well.

I do have a columnar english oak that is a few years old that has already produced acorns. I didn't think to plant them until the spring and by then all of the dropped acorns had spoiled. I'll be ready though this fall.

Someone said that you don't plant oak trees for your benefit but for the benefit of your children. If these acorns grown well I am going to pass them out to all my neighbors and ask them to plant them. The only thing I don't like about my neighborhood is that there aren't any mature trees because the houses are just a few years old.

Sorry sanctified,

I did a little more research during lunch and found out lime raises pH. The reason for adding lime to the 5-1-1 mix is to get calcium and magnesium, which many fertilizers don't include, into the soil. The trade off is the lime will raise the soil's pH. Because the 5-1-1 mix is mostly bark and bark is acidic, the addition of the lime reduces the 5-1-1's acidity along with adding calcium and magnesium. For most plants this is okay, but with plants that like a fairly acidic soil (Japanese Maples, Rhododendrons, Camellias, Azaleas, etc) we want to keep the acidity of the 5-1-1 and 1-1-1 mixes. In those cases we can add gypsum (doesn't effect the pH) to the mix and then add epsom salts to our water. This gets calcium and magnesium to the plants without raising the pH of the gritty mixes. The other option is to use a fertilizer with the proper mix of nutrients in the appropriate levels (such as Foliage Pro or adding micro nutrients to an appropriate fertilizer such as adding Pro-Tekt to the All Purpose 24-8-16 Miracle Grow)

Sorry about the misinformation I posted last night. It was late and I should have waited until I had time to more thoroughly proof my answer.

Blake

Sanctified- we're in the same boat as far as new neighborhood and zero mature trees.. im fortunate to live in an area with tons of oaks species and can collect seeds as I wish but I may order some Bur if im unable to find any this year, thanks for the website.

Also the float test isnt always 100% percent accurate i read so i went ahead and planted all my acorns and a lot of floaters still grew (especially with the pin oak) so you may wanna try them anyway. I've also collected some Red Maples this month and they are sprouting out just this week.

Blake- I ordered Deborah Koreshaff's book and so far its great, thanks for the tip :)

Yep, I thought it was a good book also. Good information, good diagrams, reads well, etc. Glad you're enjoying it.

The thanks really go to Al (tapla). He's the one who recommended the book to me.

Blake

Been cold and wet again this week...the meteorologist call it a La Nina spring, I call it more awful than a normal Western Washington spring. After 10 years, I've just about gotten used to the dreary winters, but this time of year as winter drags on and on and on, I get really antsy for some blue sky and warmer temps.

Today was one of those rare beautiful spring days...bluebird skies and temps in the 60's, and my trees absolutely loved it.

With the colder than normal winter and a spring that's been more like winter, my little maples are a little slower getting into leaf this year than last. However, with a few nicer days over the last couple of weeks and an absolutely beautiful day today, they are finally showing some real signs of breaking dormancy.

Here's a few pics of the young leaves and another update on the Shishio hime which is leaps and bounds ahead of most of the other trees.

Peaches n Cream just beginning to unfurl
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Fire glow
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This tree was sold to me as a Villa Taranto, but it's never shown any red at all. After comparing it to some trees in a Japanese garden in Seattle over the course of last year and early this spring, I believe this tree to actually be a Koto no ito.
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My little Aureum...when I bought this tree last year the graft still hadn't healed all the way. I was encouraged to see every bud on the tree open with healthy new shoots.
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Here's the Shishio hime from over head and a close up of the leaves.
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Here's an Ukigumo I just bought this spring...it's leaves are just starting to unfurl...they will be varying degrees of variegated white and green...I've got the tree in a little flower and rock garden on the north side of a slotted fence in an attempt to keep as much direct sun off the tree as possible. In dappled/high shade, I've read, this tree should have more white than green in the leaves giving the appearance of a white cloud floating in the garden. I've seen one of these in heavy shade at another Japanese garden in Seattle, and it does indeed give the appearance of a cloud floating in the sea of green surrounding it.
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Here's very young leaves on my wife's Green Trompenburg, which oddly enough have come out very red this spring. These leaves look much more like red "Trompenburg". Vertrees' "Japanese Maples" suggest the Green Trompenburg was developed from "open pollinated" seeds. I wonder if this little tree is going to revert to what appears to be one of the parent trees. Time will tell.
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This next set of pictures shows closeups of the variety of colors on my new Aka shigitatsu sawa...the first with lots of pink in the entire leaf, the second with the characteristic pink in the palm, and the third with little or no pink at all.
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Here's one of the "pom pom" clusters from the Shishigashira
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Last for this update but not least is my little Shaina. This compact witches' broom shrub grows slowly but holds it's reddish to maroon color well all year. My tree was bought late in the winter, when it unexpectedly showed up in a nursery I frequent. The graft still shows quite prominently on this little tree, but it has a very nice shape and was the first under $200 I had seen in this area. So I snatched it up and am hopeful I can get it happily and healthily through a few seasons until I'm more confident the graft took well and the tree will survive. Oh well, that's the risk I take to get a very nicely shaped young tree at $25.
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I noticed when I came in this evening that a few more trees had leaves escaping their winter protective bud shells, so maybe I'll have a few more to post tomorrow.

Hope you enjoyed, and let's see some of that spring growth from some of your trees.

Blake

Noticed when I came home for lunch today, what appears (based on height damage) to be deer damage on a couple of trees and all but one leaf stripped off of the Green Trompenburg. Hope that tree survives. As for the others, we'll see how they recover.

Blake

They look good, I built a potting bench this last weekend and planted the rest of my oak seedlings and acorns. I went to a local bonsai class on Saturday where they recommended getting some Trident and Amur maples to play with while my oaks are starting out. I looked at some today but didn't buy anything.

My autumn full maple is still really droopy but I'm hoping it will pull out of it still. We have had a hot streak (last three days 80+ with a couple more to go) that I'm sure isn't helping much.

I'm working late tonight but will try to get some pictures up tomorrow of my new potting/plant bench.

As promised here is an album of my potting bench with my seedling and acorn trays. These are all from the RootMaker product line. I was a little worried about the big holes in the smaller cups but they seemed to hold the 511 mix pretty well. The best part is that the bench only cost me about $10 since I had a bunch of the wood laying around left over from other projects.

The bench faces east so they are shielded from the hot afternoon sun. I am going to a local Bonsai club tomorrow and may take one of the seedlings with me to get some tips on starting to wire the trunk while it is still real small. We'll see.

Here is a link that might be useful: Potting Bench Album

Been a while and as we all know Japanese maples seem to change weekly during the spring, so here's some updated photos of some of my trees. Most of these are progressing nicely, building into an over all shape with layering both vertically and horizontally that I want. That said I don't have any "finished" or ready to show trees, so you may have to use your imagination on some and think how they would look a couple of years from now as they continue to grow in.

Coralinum: one of my favorites in my collection...didn't get a top down and it still isn't in full leaf (been cooler and wetter than normal, and that's saying something for western Washington)
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Ornatum: no top down (it's too tall without a ladder and I didn't feel like dragging one out) but this pic shows the vertical layering well
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Shaina: small dwarf with leaf clusters closely clumped to limbs
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Shaina top down view
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Autumn Moon
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Autumn Moon top down view
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Peaches n Cream
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Peaches n Cream top down view
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Koto no ito
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Koto no ito top down view
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Tamukeyama: Really developing the shape I wanted it to.
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Tamukeyama top down view
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Red Crusader: this one needs to develop some more layering lower on the left hand side.
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Red Crusader top down view: you can see a hole in the top side
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Shishio hime: I posted this one last night on Al's "Trees in Containers" thread and after viewing it there decided to remove some of the growth on the upper left side. I think this was a good pruning cut. I has left the left side a little undeveloped for now, but as it grows in over the next 3-5 years, it will be better balanced.
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Shishio hime top down view: here you can see it needs more development on the side near my feet and on my left (the top in the picture)
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Hope you enjoy seeing as much as I always enjoy growing and keeping track of these tree's growth.

Blake

Newest addition...

It's a tiny little dwarf named Beni Hoshi (reported to mean
"Red Star")...it'll get about 6' at maturity but is reported to be a very slow grower.

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Blake

Great updates, Blake!
The early growth on my Trident was covered in snow and subsequently frozen black.
Now, the growth is coming in nicely...but it was set back by a month at the least.
The good news is that the die-back on top caused budding lower down on the trunk,
so now I have a whole set of new low branches to begin developing.

Josh

I have a japanese maple ~20 feet tall (and probably never pruned) in my front yard. Can i grow another one from the wing looking seeds currently falling off the tree? Anything special i need to know about it? Just wet the seeds and put into soil.

Honestly, being mainly interested in known cultivars (grown by grafting trees onto root stock versus growing from seed), I've never tried or even researched growing maples of any variety from seed. I believe the seeds have to reach a certain chill requirement before they'll germinate.

I did a quick search and found this thread. Maybe that'll be of some help to you.

Blake

Here is a link that might be useful: Acers from seed

Second Sensu in two years showing signs of being very unhappy. Actually, last year the Sensu went down hill very slowly. This year the young leaves turned black and shriveled up overnight.

Not sure if I'm just unlucky with the specific examples of this cultivar I've purchased, if this cultivar just doesn't like it's roots to be messed with, doesn't do well with bud pinching or what.

In both cases, the trees sent out vibrant new shoots and leaves and look good for several weeks to a month after bud swell. In this year's tree, the leaves went from looking good to black and withered overnight after I pinched the buds in the upper most shoots back to two nodes.

I think this is largely coincidence as even the leaves and shoots that were left to grow shriveled and died.

Other than winter freezing/icing damage (my own fault for not getting the very tender trees into the garage prior to last winter's snow/ice storm) these two Sensus are the only one's that haven't seemed very happy with the methods I'm applying.

I haven't read anything to indicate that Sensu is any more fragile than my other trees.

I'm wondering if I should just leave this cultivar alone until I get more experience under my belt, but I love this little "moving fan" species.

Maybe if I spent a little extra money to get a more established specimen...

Decisions, decisions

Blake

Some more new additions.

Kasagi yama

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Close up of Kasagi yama leaf

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Beni ubi gohon

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Beni ubi gohon after pruning

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Sorry, I didn't take any pictures of the Kasagi yama prior to thinning.

I did some searching for additional information on the hardiness of Acer Shirasawanum Sensu on the web. Really didn't find anything conclusive. Talked to my local nurseryman today (I trust him). He said when young the Sensu is a fairly sensitive tree and can go downhill very quickly (as I've found). If I try this cultivar again, I will make sure it is a larger more established tree.

My Autumn Moon was looking droopy this afternoon. I moved it into more shade and it perked up within about a half an hour, so I think I just had it in too much sun. We've had a drastic change from cooler and wetter than normal to much hotter than normal over the last week. This quick change in weather may be causing some form of shock in the more sensitive trees as well. So far, the couple that have shown signs of heat stress (general droopiness, curling on the edges of the youngest leaves, etc) have perked back up and seem to be doing well after being moved into a more shady part of the yard.

Anyway, I'm up to 21 Acers now, and I'm really surprised by how many shades of green and red there really are. Seems like not one tree has the same color of green or red as any other tree.

As always, hope you enjoyed the update as much as I enjoy growing and shaping these wonderful little trees.

I'll try to post an update showing some of the color change this spring later this week or this weekend.

Blake

Excellent additions, Blake!
I did the first branch pruning of the season on my Trident this past weekend, and now
I'm waiting for more leaves before I snip the tips of other branches.

Josh

Wondering if anyone else has ever tried to pinch buds on any Acer shirasawanums. The reason I ask, is I've had 2 Acer shirasawanum Sensus that have died on my in the last 2 years. In both cases the trees were looking very strong until I pinched the buds out on the new shoots after 2 sets of new leaves on each new shoot. Within a couple weeks of pinching the buds off the new shoots, both trees began showing signs of distress and both trees were completely dead within a month of bud pinching. Maybe coincidental?

Now for additional circumstantially evidence. A week or so ago I had an Acer shirasawanum Autumn Moon that was growing very strongly and look beautiful. I pinched several of the longest shoots in the top of the tree and now the tree looks distressed, ie droopy leaf stalks, just like both Acer shirasawanum Sensus.

It continues to be wet here in western WA and my first thought was the nursery soil the tree is in my be too wet, but my other two shirasawanums, both of which have been in the same wet weather as the Sensu which died earlier this year and the Autumn Moon which isn't looking good now, look fine.

Well I think it must have been coincidence or possibly the tree was right on the edge of being stressed from being too wet and when I pinched the buds the little extra stress pushed it into showing its stress.

The "show piece" Autumn Moon wasn't looking any better today, so I decided to plant it next to an Autumn Moon that was storm damaged last winter. The broken Autumn Moon has been doing really well in the corner of the yard where I decided to plant it and see if it would recuperate from last winter's storm damage.

At any rate, since the "show piece" Autumn Moon (just bought this spring, after leaf out so no chance to get it out of the nursery soil) was looking pour, I decided to plant it. My thinking was that the nursery soil was too water retentive and with our really wet spring (and that's saying a lot when you live in western WA) the tree was showing signs of over watering.

When I pulled the tree out of the black plastic nursery pot, the soil was literally dripping water off the bottom. So it's planted now and maybe it'll do better atleast for this year and I can dig it up next year, root prune and plant in a nice container.

We'll see how it goes.

Last year when I lost my Sensu, I swore I would learn what it took to diagnose problems and keep my trees happy. I was very disappointed in myself when I lost another Sensu earlier this spring. I'm encouraged that I was able to diagnose the likely problem with the Autumn Moon based on my research from last year. Hopefully, I've taken a step that will help the tree recuperate and get healthy again.

Hey, Blake, sorry about the losses...
but I'm glad that you've diagnosed the issues.
Good luck with your next Sensu ;-)

Josh

Thanks Josh.

My idea when I started this thread was to follow the development of my trees over time and hopefully to follow my own development as I learned how to take care of these little maples.

With that in mind, I've tried to post not only my successes but also my failures.

Today, unfortunately, I have another failure to post. It has been quite wet and much cooler than an average year this spring. With all the cloudy days and drizzle, I admit that I haven't check the moisture level of the soils in my tree containers as much as I would if it were drier. Well, Saturday while moving my trees around so I could mow the lawn I noticed that another one of my trees (purchased too late this spring to move to the gritty mix)was looking bad (dry cupped leaves with brown tips). I immediately got a bamboo stick and tested the moisture in the pot. To my horror, I discovered that only about the top inch of soil was moist and below that it was bone dry. I checked all the trees and most of them needed watering.

I again checked the tree with dry leaves on Sunday and approximately the outer 1/3 of the leaves were brown and crinkly.

So looks like I've killed yet another one this year.

That's one last year and three this year. Maybe that's the cost of doing business for a beginner, but I just can't accept that as the truth. And this time there's no doubt, it was my fault.

So use this as a cautionary tale and check the moisture level in your pots even when it's rainy or drizzly. They may not be getting enough moisture from light drizzle or they may be getting too wet.

Blake

I have had a beautiful Acer in a pot since 2004. When I bought it, it was @ 4 foot tall. My husband has been telling me that it will die if I don't put it in the ground (he isn't a gardening guru like yourselves:) so I would rather go with my gut instinct!) I have been very fortunate with growing plants in the past and decided to take action with my 'not so little any-more' acer. I fed her with slow release fertiliser, pruned her back to 'a pretty shape' (I'm a woman!) and she is now looking rather good. I will take a pic and post it (hopefully tomorrow when the weather is better). I did stuff one thing up in the pruning though (sorry)...I pruned new wood, and my mother tree has been crying ever since. Even stranger, the 'limb' that I removed (and placed in water outside, but sheltered) is continuing to bud and flower! Any tips on how I should tackle transferring this to a pot? I had thought of using some growth hormone on the exposed cut and plunging in to either water or some well draining soil with perhaps a bag around it to maintain humidity...been reading other people's posts as I haven't found anything advising how I should strike an Acer like this...any advice please? Dawn

Visited Bunnings this morning for some growth hormone for the cutting in the cat's water bowl. Following a chat with the lovely assistant, I settled on "Multicrop Plant Starter". The advice is to stand cuttings in 2cm of undiluted liquid for 24hours before planting, so I found a jar (not hard as I have tonnes of them!) and carefully measured out 2cm of the liquid. When I retrieved the cutting from the cat's bowl, would you believe it (?), it already had a root on it! I am following the advice on the bottle in any case and will be planting the cutting tomorrow...weather permitting. It's a beautiful day today, so will take a photo of both mother tree and baby for posting later :) Dawn

Hi Dawn,

As you well know by now Acers adapt quite well to container life. You should know though that to continue being healthy long term, your Acer will need root pruning periodically. For maximum health you might consider moving your Acer into one of the soil less mixtures described in these forums.

I've never tried growing an Acer from a cutting. However, I know a couple of the guys on here have had good luck growing the Tridents from cuttings.

Sounds like you're well on your way with your cutting.

Would love to see pictures of the tree.

Blake

Hi Blake,
Been raining most of today and I didn't manage to strike my cutting yesterday as I was busy trying to save my conifers from canker! Lots of water, feed and mulch - the trees came with the house and have never had any care...until now. As soon as we have another few clear days, I will locate the damage and treat with meths and tree paint...I think that it could be possum damage that is making them stressed unfortunately, but I will be able to see more when I scale them. Back to the acers update! I think that I left the cutting in the rooting hormone too long because when I removed it to plant it in its first container, the root had dropped off...I planted and staked the cutting anyway and am praying that it takes. I saw a tip from another forum with regard to the open wound left behind on a mother plant that is weeping and covered it with vaseline (petroleum jelly)...it seems to be doing the trick...will include a photo of the cut tomorrow too as the weather (I believe) is going to be good.

Managed to take a 'few' photos. The first few are of the 'Mother plant' with potted colour around the base of the trunk, but not planted as I don't want them to compete with the Mother Acer for nutrients. I have also included the 'wound' that I dressed with vodka (not meths as I realised that I had run out!) and then vaseline. If you can make it out, you can see that the weeping has stopped completely. The second set of photos, are of the 'Baby Acer', on Days 1 and 2 with close ups of the foliage

Mother Tree and potted colour 22.9.12

Mother Acer 'Wound' 22.9.12

Baby Acer, Day 1 from planting, 22.9.12

Baby Acer - Foliage Close-up, Day 1 from Planting 22.9.12

Baby Acer - Day 1, 22.9.12

Baby Acer - Day 2 from Planting, 23.9.12

Baby Acer - Overhead, Day 2 from planting, 23.9.12

Baby Acer - Foliage Close-up, Day 2 from planting, 23.9.12

Baby Acer - Day 3 from Planting, 24.9.12

Baby Acer - Overhead, Day 3 from Planting 24.9.12

Baby Acer - Foliage Close-up, Day 3 from planting, 24.9.12

Baby Acer - Day 4 from Planting, 25.9.12

Baby Acer - Overhead, Day 4 from Planting 25.9.12

Baby Acer - Foliage Close-up 1, Day 4 from planting, 25.9.12

Baby Acer - Foliage Close-up 2, Day 4 from planting, 25.9.12

Baby Acer - Foliage Close-up 3, Day 4 from planting, 25.9.12

Baby Acer - Foliage Close-up 4, Day 4 from planting, 25.9.12