More great photos. I have really been tempted to try an Aureum, but I'm afraid the summer heat in North Carolina might be too much. I don't like plants that I have to baby. Hopefully, Autumn Moon will suffice.

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

mjh and mucknmire, thanks for the worldplants info. Sometimes ya just can't afford to buy all your plants nice and big. I'm glad to hear their trees are good quality. I did buy a Sharp's Pygmy this weekend at a local nursery because of the year guarantee, and I did also buy a little Beni Otaki on Ebay because the price was great (this is beginning to sound like a confession), and I may yet get one more little one to put in a pot from worldplants, because their prices are so good. Maiku Jaku ended up at the top of my list because I really like the photos I've seen of it, but then I decided I really need to go SMALL (I have very limited space). I just hope the palmatums I bought prove hardy enough for my conditions. If not, next year, it'll be one of the japonicums. Thanks for the worldplants info. Christina

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--