There are JM varieties that will virtually never fade to green, but many of them do, in response to the amount of sunlight they get. The usual pattern is for the new growth to come in red, and then get greener as it ages, then turn to red again in the fall, so for part of the summer, you have an almost two-tone look to the tree. Either learn to like it, or find another variety for that spot, that will STAY red, and move this one again, come fall. If you want one that will be really red, and aren't sure about it, try it in a largish pot for a year, sitting in the same place it will be planted. And, it may be that spot has more shade than will let ANY JM stay red. Not being there, I don't know.

Here is a follow-up development: While I suspected the tree suffered from chlorosis from the alkaline heavy clay, I bought a can of iron-chelate and experimented it on one of the branches. I dissolve a few grams of iron-chelate powder into about 2L of water. Then I dipped all leaves in the "experiment branch" in this diluted iron-chelate solution. I then dumped the iron solution right onto the root ball. After 3 days of the treatment, I noticed that the dipped leaves appeared much greener than the rest of the tree, which hasn't improved (or got worse). So I still suspect cholorsis in play with the red maple tree. I am going to dip more leaves to see if there is any good improvement. By the way - against all wise advises we still decided to replant the tree in order to: (1) Raise the tree bed to improve drainage (2) Cut the circling roots (3) Most importantly, remove the sod that I, due to lack of experience, burried at the bottom of the planting hole. At the time of exvacation, the root ball was swimming in a large pit due to poor drainage (not visible from the surface). The smell was awful (guess this is what CSI calls "decomp"). We removed all of the decomp mud, washed the tree's roots, and cut off the roots that have been affected by the rot. We also cut off the encircling roots. We then widened the planting hole from 2.5' to 3.5', filled it with fresh black earth & clay (30-70 mix). We elevated the root ball to be about ~6" above the ground surface. We compacted the mound to make sure there wasn't large air pockets. Then we covered it with ~4" of red cedar mulch, leaving about 6" of space around the trunk. It looks like a large red donut circling the tree. Hopefully the tree will recover from the surgery.

The following are guesses/opinion on my part: Cactus that turn red in stress or winter - I would guess that it would be a breakdown of chlorophyll (if the cactus is not metabolyzing at a high rate it would have less need of chlorophyll). For plants that are red during the growing season/full sun -- I would guess that there is not any less chlorophyll, but just an increase in cyanins that mask the chlorophyll. I would guess this is to help protect the plant from excess sun.* Most plants that have varying levels of reddish color, are more red in in bright light than low light, and tend to be more red in spring when the leaves are young and more vulnerable to damage (One common example I'm thinking of is Japanese Maple (excluding those varieties that have been bred to be red constantly.) *As to why some plants in the same space are green and some not. Different species are going to respond to the amount of light differently, and different varieties within a species are going to have different capabilities to produce cyanin. Some cacti (it is believed) have evolved to be spiny or hairy not to protect them from predation as much as to filter the light reaching the stem.

I saw an Inazuma maple today at a nursery. It was about 5 ft tall and wide. I liked the shape of the leaves and their coloration. The only thing I didn't like was that it looked very much like a shrub and not so much like a JM tree, if that makes sense... Do you know if it will assume the shape of a small tree with age, or if it can be carefully pruned to resemble more of a small tree shape? The other one I saw and really liked was Acer shirasawanum 'Yasemin'. It was a small plant still, but the color was almost identical to the Bloodgood's and Emperor I's nearby, except that the leave shape was very appealing and different from the more typical Acer palmatum shape. Bboy, the Wolff maple looks great, the leave shape seems distinctly different from Bloodgood, color seems good. I will check it out at the local nurseries. Whaas, I saw a Fireglow nearby as well, but I couldn't tell any difference between them in the Bloodgood's, neither in foliage shape nor coloration. Like I said, I have nothing against Bloodgood, it's a great tree, and obviously is doing well in our area, or all the older trees wouldn't be around. I just think there are so many good maple varieties that it doesn't hurt to plant something different occasionally. Thanks for all your suggestions and ideas.