Hi dan, Absolutely beautiful... This is definitely an old thread..brings back memories. After over 10 years of maple "madness" :), I finally gave up all my 60+ trees (all in containers) about 3 years ago. An ice storm dropped my 2 shade trees, and without those I found it impossible to keep my container trees in the TX heat. With lot of work related travel, and kids, I found it difficult to allocate enough time for my maples. Funny, I still held on to the Aureum GFM (about 15 years old now), Autumn Moon, Abigail Rose, and a Geisha. These 4 trees are still in containers (all under 3 feet tall), under some shade cloth, and still doing great in the TX heat surviving against all odds. Good seeing your trees again. Regards, xman

xman, I think that will be fine. Up until just a week ago, I had mine in full sun and it held up ok. I can do this in the spring and fall, but when the temps get up over 90 I will start to see some leaf burn and scorching if the tree gets direct exposure after about 1pm. So now I have in in its lagre ceramic pot under a mature ash tree with just some limited sun in the middle of the day, maybe 11-1pm. It will be fine. I don't know that the following advice is worth much, but when I have had my Aureums in full shade they don't do as well. I acutally think it is because the soil mediums don't dry out as fast. But in anycase, I have used partial expsure in mid-day and last year I put the tree in North to NW expsure where it got sun, lower on the horizon, late in the day. This worked very well. If you can put a little more air in your mix for this tree with more fir bark or perlite, I think it will benifit. MJH

I think it is A. shirasawanum, but not the Aureum cultivar. One scenario is that the graft failed years ago and the leaves we see sprouted from the rootstock. This is kind of unlikely as A. shirasawanum is usually grafted onto A. palmatum rather than itself. Another scenario that this was grown from seed and is technically "A. shirasawanum from Aureum" but not A. shirasawanum 'Aureum'. This seems a more likely scenario. Many of the supposed 'bloodgoods' and so forth seen in retail stores are actually grown from seed and should more properly be termed something like "A. palmatum var. purpureum" as they are not cultivars at all. Some older sources consider A. shirasawanum to be a variety of A. japonicum rather than a separate species (whether they are wrong or not is a matter of discussion). Accordingly, this specimin could also be an A. japonicum or some hybrid. Until scientists really map the genome of these plants, their taxonomic classifications are really more a matter of custom and debate than biology. I have several "not quite identified" maples that look great and bring me enjoyment. You have an attractive plant there and I hope it brings you joy as well.

Ahh..such is the life of a zone (wallet) buster. I was just wondering if any of you in Minnesota have noticed that some individual plants within the same species might have different cold tolerances depending on their origin. I have noticed that here in Massachusets with my experiments. Good example: I had purchased and planted a mimosa tree about 5 years ago. It grew rapidly to a large size in a few years (many feet each year), before being killed back to the main trunk during our winter month from hell (January 2004). But all the other mimosa trees in my neighborhood--many very large ones that must by 25 years old atleast-live on like nothing happened. So--i've started to experiment with propogation of local zone marginal plants that have withstood the test of time in my area. The moral of the story is that I try to be careful about the plant source. I was in the Central Valley of CA this spring and happened across a HUGE Monrovia operation--they were growing everything. And I bet the plants we buy locally that have a Monrovia tag may be years old but have never experienced a temperature below 30F. Just a thought--